This all echoes *exactly* what I've been thinking in this final stretch. The math ain't mathing, to quote Taraji Henson. Trump hasn't done or said anything that would be considered a net positive while Harris has been actually showing up for more interviews and providing more information about her policies, despite the blatant double standard in the media. There's something fishy going on with the numbers, and the math ain't mathing.
The one thing I'm afraid of: I could easily see a 3% rate of Democrats from 2020 defecting to Trump because they (insanely) think he'd be better for the economy. Or a larger swing for that same reason among independents. Couldn't that easily wash out all of Harris's advantages?
I don't think so. I actually had a couple sentences in my original draft about this, but I edited it out because I couldn't make it flow well. Every election there is some defectors from both sides, so there will be a baseline of those from each party that will wash each other out. But there will be a unique class of Republican defectors this year that will go above and beyond the baseline. That's what will make Harris' victory decisive. She'll be getting voters that wouldn't normally defect, but are defecting this cycle due to unique circumstances.
The fact that there are not prominent "Biden Voters for Trump" groups out there is a key indicator of this.
Hmm. Right. Because, like, the economy is always the most important thing that can sway voters away from an incumbent party (other than, say, a mishandled war), but this is a known and normal thing and you can't always predict elections purely based on economy. (Even the unscientific-but-not-completely-useless 13 keys only uses 2 economic keys.) Where as the anti-Trump Republicans are a highly unusual and therefore salient signal.
I also wonder why Mitch McConnell would fee willing to criticize Trump and MAGA if he didn't feel certain Trump was about to lose.
I actually did not take it as sarcasm… to me it indicated reflection followed by realization. I had very much the same reaction after reading his reply.
I hope you are right. But I’m afraid of a 2016 repeat. What about white men who secretly vote Trump but pretend otherwise to keep the household peace? Or white women who secretly vote Trump to keep friendships intact?
I theorize, based on the 2022 elections - which would have been worse than 2010 if economic sentiment were determinative - that ACTUAL economic conditions matter more to electoral results more than opinion surveys about the economy.
2022 was the first time it was ever even tested because the numbers had not been decoupled, ever, until after the pandemic. Sentiment always followed performance.
And the economy now is MUCH better than it was in 2022 when inflation was still near double digits and real wages were falling.
So I think we will see the incumbent party perform at least close to the way you would expect, given the economic figures we’re seeing.
To elaborate - I think this makes sense, actually.
When you ask people “how is the economy?” they are answering “what have you seen in the news about the economy?” They care far, far, far more about their own finances than any abstract conceptions of an “economy” (A currently-airing Progressive insurance commercial amusing points out most adults cannot define it.)
I like all your reasoning - very similar to Rosenberg and others. This election is Complicated! Even early voting doesn’t really tell us everything - bc Rs will not , are not voting as they typically would. Perhaps some of the most enthusiastic R early voters are voting for Harris. The reverse really isn’t happening - and as you suggest, it’s probably at least 1% and likely more. I’ve read a lot of crazy posts from supposed Biden voters in 2020 who have switched - the “logic” is so crazy, they must be living in Moscow.
Yeah, it's not really rocket science. The fact is that Harris will have more voters available to her this cycle that the average Dem candidate would not have. That's pretty much the ballgame.
I'm not too concerned about Dem defectors. Every election there is some defectors from both sides, so there will be a baseline of those. But there will be a unique class of defectors this year that will go above and beyond the baseline.
The reverse really ‘IS’ happening, and the extent to which it is happening will be evident in the outcome - not saying this analysis is off the mark…but if it is, this myopic persistence will be a big discussion point when everyone invariably starts asking, “what did we miss?”
It ain’t that close and the reasons are pretty basic - typical traditional polling techniques likely use legacy-type tech and communications methods to reach out to target audiences, hence at the get-go, one must assess the desired target audience of any poll -assuming the poll wants to assess the opinions of recent voters (and therefor also assumed to be future voters), assume that they seek to identify voters who identify as either registered republicans or democrats - depending upon said target audience, there are different ways of engaging them:
(1) nowadays, most households DO NOT have a traditional landline phone, just as most consumers do not use paper checks to handle their financial transactions - if said poll depends upon contacting its audience via public phone number databases, it will necessarily only reach those that use said antiquated tech - namely the elderly, the poor, rural residents or the uneducated (thus immediate sample selection bias)
(2) The others #s on those public phone databases are likely tech-savvy mobile device users that are aware and use the spam caller, unknown caller suppression features that their device and mobile carrier offer - thus this is another sample impediment that pollsters need to deal w/
(3) now desperate for poll participants, said pollsters much find alternative methods to engage w/ their target audiences - based upon the new paradigm of boutique social media “cliques”, the pollsters are forced to use these groupings to field their inquiries, leading to all sorts of inbred, concentrated sample biases.
(4) a significant portion of the electorate (estimated 20%) are non-aligned independents - being non-aligned, pollsters usually do not attempt to include them in their sample audiences - thus once again, from the get-go, the foundational basis of any poll is immediately suspect…
Independents typically trend closer to democrats, in terms of education attainment, social and financial demographic, etc - in the 2020 presidential election, independents largely went in for Biden and given the last 4 yrs and the current choices, there is not substantive evidence that this trend would significantly alter from favoring the democratic ticket… FWIW and IMHO
There was a pandemic! Way more Dems voted by mail to avoid risk. Before Trump denigrated mail voting, the Republicans used it more. Last time it became a badge of honor for then to show how the pandemic did not impact them!
Much of this is aligned with what I have been saying to my fretting Democratic friends. If you look objectively at trends and actual numbers, it is a much stronger outlook for Harris.
I've been saying everything you are saying for a long time. It's just about the numbers. I'm heading to Canada for a month, have voted, and will be looking forward to an early night on November 5th. If I am dead wrong, then at least I have Canadian citizenship and will adopt 500 of my closest friends!
Very true. But they are still an indicator of the sentiment of voters, and better than what we have now, IMO. And I used the very low-end conservative range of the numbers to account for this.
Something to consider: one of the most important electoral developments in modern US politics, which we saw in both 2020 and 2022, has been racial depolarization. The Democratic Party has generally been gaining white, college-educated voters at the expense of non-white voters. It's important to think about for a bunch of reasons, but purely electorally, it likely precludes a decisive victory for Trump or Harris. For Harris specifically, it means her most likely path to winning is Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with exactly 270 electoral votes.
You raise a good point. But that element of the shifts in the electorate can't be viewed in isolation. There are other demographic changes over the last couple election cycles that counter this. For example, older voters are trending towards Dems. They are the most robust voting bloc, so if that continues, it more than makes up for the loss of non-white voters. And recent polling, as reported on CNN, suggests that non-college educated white male voters are moving away from Trump, albeit at a slow pace. And then you have the huge uptick in new women Dem registrations since Harris became the nominee, especially non-white women.
TBH, I think all these other factors suggest we can expect a decisive victory. But, obviously, we'll have to wait and see. You could be right.
Great point. Although I would say that the county had their opportunity to make their feelings known on that in 2020, even though many more deaths were in the making. But yes, there could be a lagging effect in 2024 on that.
We can't know exactly what it all means. But the best Dem data analyst around, Tom Bonier, has addressed this a lot. If you're on Xitter at all, I recommend reading him, it will probably help you sleep! Here's his Xitter link: https://x.com/tbonier
He basically says that this is expected, since Covid caused a tsunami of early and mail voting in 2020, and Dems took it more seriously while Reps were demonizing Covid and early/mail voting. Therefore, what we are likely to see (and are currently seeing) is a regression back to normalcy for early voting rates for both parties in 2020.
This all echoes *exactly* what I've been thinking in this final stretch. The math ain't mathing, to quote Taraji Henson. Trump hasn't done or said anything that would be considered a net positive while Harris has been actually showing up for more interviews and providing more information about her policies, despite the blatant double standard in the media. There's something fishy going on with the numbers, and the math ain't mathing.
The one thing I'm afraid of: I could easily see a 3% rate of Democrats from 2020 defecting to Trump because they (insanely) think he'd be better for the economy. Or a larger swing for that same reason among independents. Couldn't that easily wash out all of Harris's advantages?
I don't think so. I actually had a couple sentences in my original draft about this, but I edited it out because I couldn't make it flow well. Every election there is some defectors from both sides, so there will be a baseline of those from each party that will wash each other out. But there will be a unique class of Republican defectors this year that will go above and beyond the baseline. That's what will make Harris' victory decisive. She'll be getting voters that wouldn't normally defect, but are defecting this cycle due to unique circumstances.
The fact that there are not prominent "Biden Voters for Trump" groups out there is a key indicator of this.
Hmm. Right. Because, like, the economy is always the most important thing that can sway voters away from an incumbent party (other than, say, a mishandled war), but this is a known and normal thing and you can't always predict elections purely based on economy. (Even the unscientific-but-not-completely-useless 13 keys only uses 2 economic keys.) Where as the anti-Trump Republicans are a highly unusual and therefore salient signal.
I also wonder why Mitch McConnell would fee willing to criticize Trump and MAGA if he didn't feel certain Trump was about to lose.
Just realized my "Right" could sound sarcastic, it was not!
I actually did not take it as sarcasm… to me it indicated reflection followed by realization. I had very much the same reaction after reading his reply.
I hope you are right. But I’m afraid of a 2016 repeat. What about white men who secretly vote Trump but pretend otherwise to keep the household peace? Or white women who secretly vote Trump to keep friendships intact?
I just don't see those as a factor this time. But anything is possible.
I theorize, based on the 2022 elections - which would have been worse than 2010 if economic sentiment were determinative - that ACTUAL economic conditions matter more to electoral results more than opinion surveys about the economy.
2022 was the first time it was ever even tested because the numbers had not been decoupled, ever, until after the pandemic. Sentiment always followed performance.
And the economy now is MUCH better than it was in 2022 when inflation was still near double digits and real wages were falling.
So I think we will see the incumbent party perform at least close to the way you would expect, given the economic figures we’re seeing.
To elaborate - I think this makes sense, actually.
When you ask people “how is the economy?” they are answering “what have you seen in the news about the economy?” They care far, far, far more about their own finances than any abstract conceptions of an “economy” (A currently-airing Progressive insurance commercial amusing points out most adults cannot define it.)
I like all your reasoning - very similar to Rosenberg and others. This election is Complicated! Even early voting doesn’t really tell us everything - bc Rs will not , are not voting as they typically would. Perhaps some of the most enthusiastic R early voters are voting for Harris. The reverse really isn’t happening - and as you suggest, it’s probably at least 1% and likely more. I’ve read a lot of crazy posts from supposed Biden voters in 2020 who have switched - the “logic” is so crazy, they must be living in Moscow.
Yeah, it's not really rocket science. The fact is that Harris will have more voters available to her this cycle that the average Dem candidate would not have. That's pretty much the ballgame.
I'm not too concerned about Dem defectors. Every election there is some defectors from both sides, so there will be a baseline of those. But there will be a unique class of defectors this year that will go above and beyond the baseline.
The reverse really ‘IS’ happening, and the extent to which it is happening will be evident in the outcome - not saying this analysis is off the mark…but if it is, this myopic persistence will be a big discussion point when everyone invariably starts asking, “what did we miss?”
‘Perspective’, not ‘persistent’
Blog: election poll inherent sample selection biases
It ain’t that close and the reasons are pretty basic - typical traditional polling techniques likely use legacy-type tech and communications methods to reach out to target audiences, hence at the get-go, one must assess the desired target audience of any poll -assuming the poll wants to assess the opinions of recent voters (and therefor also assumed to be future voters), assume that they seek to identify voters who identify as either registered republicans or democrats - depending upon said target audience, there are different ways of engaging them:
(1) nowadays, most households DO NOT have a traditional landline phone, just as most consumers do not use paper checks to handle their financial transactions - if said poll depends upon contacting its audience via public phone number databases, it will necessarily only reach those that use said antiquated tech - namely the elderly, the poor, rural residents or the uneducated (thus immediate sample selection bias)
(2) The others #s on those public phone databases are likely tech-savvy mobile device users that are aware and use the spam caller, unknown caller suppression features that their device and mobile carrier offer - thus this is another sample impediment that pollsters need to deal w/
(3) now desperate for poll participants, said pollsters much find alternative methods to engage w/ their target audiences - based upon the new paradigm of boutique social media “cliques”, the pollsters are forced to use these groupings to field their inquiries, leading to all sorts of inbred, concentrated sample biases.
(4) a significant portion of the electorate (estimated 20%) are non-aligned independents - being non-aligned, pollsters usually do not attempt to include them in their sample audiences - thus once again, from the get-go, the foundational basis of any poll is immediately suspect…
Independents typically trend closer to democrats, in terms of education attainment, social and financial demographic, etc - in the 2020 presidential election, independents largely went in for Biden and given the last 4 yrs and the current choices, there is not substantive evidence that this trend would significantly alter from favoring the democratic ticket… FWIW and IMHO
There was a pandemic! Way more Dems voted by mail to avoid risk. Before Trump denigrated mail voting, the Republicans used it more. Last time it became a badge of honor for then to show how the pandemic did not impact them!
Much of this is aligned with what I have been saying to my fretting Democratic friends. If you look objectively at trends and actual numbers, it is a much stronger outlook for Harris.
I've been saying everything you are saying for a long time. It's just about the numbers. I'm heading to Canada for a month, have voted, and will be looking forward to an early night on November 5th. If I am dead wrong, then at least I have Canadian citizenship and will adopt 500 of my closest friends!
Very well written and presented. Thank you.
Quibble:
“First, these are polls from actual voters in actual election”
True, but not the same pool of voters that can be expected to show up in the general election. Makes for a large non-response bias.
Very true. But they are still an indicator of the sentiment of voters, and better than what we have now, IMO. And I used the very low-end conservative range of the numbers to account for this.
Oh, yes, for sure. And the non-response bias in polling is even worse.
Something to consider: one of the most important electoral developments in modern US politics, which we saw in both 2020 and 2022, has been racial depolarization. The Democratic Party has generally been gaining white, college-educated voters at the expense of non-white voters. It's important to think about for a bunch of reasons, but purely electorally, it likely precludes a decisive victory for Trump or Harris. For Harris specifically, it means her most likely path to winning is Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with exactly 270 electoral votes.
You raise a good point. But that element of the shifts in the electorate can't be viewed in isolation. There are other demographic changes over the last couple election cycles that counter this. For example, older voters are trending towards Dems. They are the most robust voting bloc, so if that continues, it more than makes up for the loss of non-white voters. And recent polling, as reported on CNN, suggests that non-college educated white male voters are moving away from Trump, albeit at a slow pace. And then you have the huge uptick in new women Dem registrations since Harris became the nominee, especially non-white women.
TBH, I think all these other factors suggest we can expect a decisive victory. But, obviously, we'll have to wait and see. You could be right.
Gee, how did all that work out for you?
Not great. I was wrong. But I'll learn from it and move on.
Let me guess.....you've never been wrong?
Many times!
Great point. Although I would say that the county had their opportunity to make their feelings known on that in 2020, even though many more deaths were in the making. But yes, there could be a lagging effect in 2024 on that.
We can't know exactly what it all means. But the best Dem data analyst around, Tom Bonier, has addressed this a lot. If you're on Xitter at all, I recommend reading him, it will probably help you sleep! Here's his Xitter link: https://x.com/tbonier
He basically says that this is expected, since Covid caused a tsunami of early and mail voting in 2020, and Dems took it more seriously while Reps were demonizing Covid and early/mail voting. Therefore, what we are likely to see (and are currently seeing) is a regression back to normalcy for early voting rates for both parties in 2020.