All three of the main forecast models are now very much singing from the same song sheet, with The Economist and FiveThirtyEight both putting Kamala Harris’s win probability at 56% and Nate Silver’s differing only insofar as it goes to one decimal place. A very similar story is told by a regularly updated YouGov MRP poll presently drawing on 100,000 respondents, which rates Harris favourite in enough states to get within 13 electoral college votes of a majority and another two (Pennsylvania and Georgia) as toss-ups each with enough votes to get her over the line. Adrian Beaumont’s latest overview is available at The Conversation.
The Republicans basically want to go back to using out-groups as slavery again, or just outright kill them if they can’t serve the 14-88 state. It’s just so obvious.
There was apparently a Suffolk/USA Today poll out of Latino voters in AZ and NV. Apparently showed young Latino men swinging heavily towards Trump which is impacting Harris’ overall Latino vote.
Latino women are still strongly supporting Harris, so perhaps these Latinas need to get their men in hand!
This is outrageous. The Pentagon should cut him loose, there simply cannot be no consequences for ugly inciteful rhetoric like this!
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1843466597916389577
This AI-created video rates the ten worst US presidents. Counterintuitively it wasn’t Trump who got the gong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzBWysepFaQ
What’s the World coming to if you can’t trust ChatGPT to get it right?
Trump is getting roasted for ducking the traditional 60 Minutes interview in the presidential campaign. I did not know that his last interview with actual journalists was the NABJ event where he crashed and burned. He’s also holding far fewer rallies than he did in 2016: 283 (2016) vs 61 (2024).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uTJW41oqc8&ab_channel=MSNBC
”
Mavissays:
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 5:31 pm
This AI-created video rates the ten worst US presidents. Counterintuitively it wasn’t Trump who got the gong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzBWysepFaQ
What’s the World coming to if you can’t trust ChatGPT to get it right?
”
I don’t know much about James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson for them to be named 1st and 2nd worst POTUSes. I can understand now why they are the worst POTUSes. I would put Andrew Jackson as the worst because he is responsible for the festering wound his policies have become even to this day. James Buchanan can be second worst. I would say Trump is the 3rd worst (from American point of view) and Bush Jr. the 4th worst (from American point of view), Hoover at 5th and LBJ the 6th worst.
But from the point of outside world, Bush Jr and LBJ would be worst POTUSes.
More migrant pet eating nonsense to ensue?
Tim Walz on Jimmy Kimmel Live
https://youtu.be/-o0bZ3QigVI?si=nZwWWbVsSnZFO8eY
C@tmomma @ #547 Tuesday, October 8th, 2024 – 3:23 pm
I looked back at the post prior to his post, and nothing stands out as particularly crazy (or crazier than the norm on here anyway.) What’s interesting to me is that this is one of a few times I have seen in the last few days of RWers online reacting to something completely anodyne or conventional to a US election in October and making commentary that it’s a sign that Harris or the Democrats are desperate, panicking, or “their internals show they must be losing.”
I’m probably just experiencing frequency illusion and partisan wishcasting is hardly a rare phenomenon but I still wonder if there’s a popular talking point among the Right that’s being echoed right now that X and Y are evidence that Harris/the Democratic Party’s internals are dire, they’re panicking and are acting desperately.
MAGA trolls confirm the success of Kamala’s podcast interview
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/7/2275406/-MAGA-trolls-confirm-the-success-of-Kamala-s-podcast-interview?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
“I don’t listen to many podcasts, and I had never heard of Alexandra Cooper’s Call Her Daddy. As part of her recent media blitz, Kamala Harris was interviewed by Cooper. This was a smart move, as the show has about five million weekly listeners, making it one of the top podcasts. The show tends to focus on women’s issues, so naturally there was a lot of discussion about abortion rights. I caught a snippet of the interview on YouTube this evening. It was a good conversation and Harris was at her best and most personable here.
But then I read the comments. There is an insane 14,000+ number of comments—I would estimate about 90% MAGA nonsense and lies. While it’s always dispiriting to read such bile, there is a positive reason behind it. First, it’s clear that nearly all of these comments are from non-listeners, mostly because they are spitting out obvious copypasta MAGA talking points. This tells me that this was an orchestrated negativity campaign. The trollish language made me think that a lot of these are probably coming from Russian troll farms.
But why? I haven’t seen this kind of MAGA swarm attack in any other videos featuring Harris. There can only be one reason—they are terrified. Few platforms reach the exact audience Harris wants to engage with like Call Her Daddy. If a significant percentage of the millions of women who hear this interview decide to register and vote, it could sway a tight race”
Let me put it this way. I can’t imagine a male Presidential candidate, let alone Trump, going on this podcast.
Wat Tyler says:
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 7:20 pm
Read the thread – they are talking of civil war, blue states threatening red states, and other crazy stuff including the usual “end of democracy” claims.
Read the thread – they are talking of civil war, blue states threatening red states, and other crazy stuff including the usual “end of democracy” claims.
——————————————-
Hilarious.
Calls election officials demanding they rig the count.
7 state effort to install fake electors
Incites mob to storm the capitol.
Demands VP not certify elections.
Mob threatens to hang VP.
Over half of the GOP reps refuse to raise their hands for certification.
A state threatens to not recognize an elected POTUS because that states overwhelmingly GOP extremists legislature just reckons it isnt fair if Trump loses.
I just riffed from there.
Pull your head of from the never never and you can see it clear as day. Everyone has been fully forewarned.
You don’t have to. They’re pretty much openly trying to subvert the democratic process at this point. Whether it’s the shenanigans in Georgia, or the GOP lawsuit to stop veterans from registering to vote, they’re doing their election subversion out in the open now.
Ven – LBJ is generally regarded in the top 20 Presidents (landmark Civil Rights legislation will do that), and if not for Vietnam, he’d be in the top ten.
US historians regularly do these rankings – Lincoln, FDR and Washington nearly always make the top three, while James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Trump at the other end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States
The lawsuits are being put in early this time so that they can’t be thrown out as easily as they were last time as judges decided they were based upon attempted post facto justification.
The problem as most observers see it is that the cases will be Appealed to the Supreme Court and that’s where Trump thinks he will win finally this time. And I think there’s a lot to that.
Ven:
LBJ had a very good legislative record:
https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson/impact-and-legacy
Apart from Vietnam, I’d rate him in the top 10 of US presidents. If his Texas drawl didn’t work, there was always the biff. And he’d eat today’s MAGA loonies for dinner. If he was around now, he’d carry Texas. I liked the guy.
NYT Sienna poll has Harris 49-Trump 46
Harris is seen by voters as the change candidate.
A 3 point popular vote win for Harris means in all likelihood Trump still wins the electoral college.
Kamala has recognised she now needs to run the minefield of interviews as she is running out of chances. One misstep and her campaign is as good as dead. I didn’t watch her latest interview but I wouldn’t be surprised if her performance was terminal.
By Michael Moore
Do the Math: Trump Is Toast
If everyone does their part in the next few weeks, Trump is going down in flames. So say I.
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/do-the-math-trump-is-toast
“ GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—Democrats have privately grown worried about Kamala Harris’s standing among working-class voters in the crucial “blue-wall” states—particularly in Michigan.”
“ Recent polling shows Harris and Trump essentially tied in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
“ An internal poll done by Democrat Tammy Baldwin’s Senate campaign last week showed Harris down by 3 percentage points in Wisconsin, while Baldwin was up by two points, according to a person familiar with the poll.”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/kamala-harris-struggling-to-break-through-with-working-class-democrats-fear-fe2038b8?st=ixwdyJ&reflink=article_copyURL_share
She has everything in her favour but is still buggering it up.
Ven
“But from the point of outside world, Bush Jr and LBJ would be worst POTUSes.”
Not in my book. I’m very thankful America had a President like GWB at 9/11 and the years following.
2020 was the first time since 1948 that Democrats won the popular vote in four elections in a row.
338 shows average national polling currently as Harris 48.5-45.9% Trump.
If this was final polling and the polling miss (or, as many believe more likely/part of the reason, the late-deciding voters broke for Trump) in 2024 is the same as in 2020, it would end up Harris 49.2-49.5% Trump.
So Trump would win the popular vote.
Big IF obviously. Just thought it was interesting.
And in the marginal states in 2020:
ARIZONA
Polling: Biden 48.2-46.3% Trump (Biden +1.9)
Actual: Biden 49.4-49.1% Trump (Biden +0.3)
Anomaly: Trump +1.6
FLORIDA
Polling: Biden 48.6-46.5% Trump (Biden +2.1)
Actual: Biden 47.9-51.2% Trump (Trump +3.3)
Anomaly: Trump +5.4
GEORGIA
Polling: Biden 47.8-47.7% Trump (Biden +0.1)
Actual Biden 49.5-49.2% Trump (Biden +0.2)
Anomaly: Biden +0.1%
IOWA
Polling: Biden 46.0-47.7% Trump (Trump +1.7)
Actual: Biden 44.9-53.1% Trump (Trump +8.2)
Anomaly: Trump +6.5
MAINE (statewide only)
Biden’s spot on at 53.1%; Trump had anomaly of +3.7% at 44.0%
MICHIGAN
Polling: Biden 50.4-44.5% Trump (Biden +5.9)
Actual: Biden 50.6-47.8% Trump (Biden +2.8)
Anomaly: Trump +3.1
MINNESOTA
Anomaly only Trump +0.6%
MONTANA
Polling: Biden 45.1-50.0% Trump (Trump +4.9)
Actual: Biden 40.6-56.9% Trump (Trump +16.3)
Anomaly: Trump +11.4
NEBRASKA (statewide only)
Anomaly Trump +9.4
NEBRASKA (2nd district)
no polling average given, but anomaly c. BIDEN +1.5 (bucks the trend)
NEVADA
Polling: Biden 49.3-45.0% Trump (Biden +4.3)
Actual: Biden 50.1-47.7% Trump (Biden +2.4)
Anomaly: Trump +1.9
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Polling: Biden 53.7-42.6% Trump (Biden +11.1)
Actual: Biden 52.7-45.4% Trump (Biden +7.3)
Anomaly: Trump +3.8
NEW MEXICO:
Actual: Biden +10.8/anomaly: Trump +1.5
NORTH CAROLINA
Polling: Biden 48.1-47.5% Trump (Biden +0.6)
Actual: Biden 48.6-49.9% Trump (Trump +1.3)
Anomaly: Trump +1.9
. . . To be continued . . .
OHIO
Polling: Biden 46.6-47.5% Trump (Trump +0.9)
Actual: Biden 45.2-53.3% Trump (Trump +8.0)
Anomaly: Trump +7.1
PENNSYLVANIA
Polling: Biden 49.4-46.3% Trump (Biden +3.1)
Actual: Biden 49.9-48.7% Trump (Biden +1.2)
Anomaly: Trump +1.9
SOUTH CAROLINA
Polling: Trump +7.1 / Anomaly Trump +4.6
TEXAS
Polling: Biden 47.1-48.4% Trump (Trump +1.3)
Actual: Biden 46.5-52.1% Trump (Trump +5.6)
Anomaly: Trump +4.3
UTAH
Polling: Trump +9.6 / Anomaly: Trump +10.9
VIRGINIA
Polling: Biden +11.6 / Anomaly: Trump +1.5
(funny to think Virginia was polling closer than Utah – though not reflected in the results)
WISCONSIN
Polling: Biden 51.7-43.6% Trump (Biden +8.1)
Actual: Biden 49.5-48.8% Trump (Biden +0.6)
Anomaly: Trump +7.5
For consistency, I should also have included:
ALASKA
Polling: Trump +6.6 / Anomaly: Trump +3.5
For Harris supporters who are worried that polling may still be underestimating Trump’s final % in 2024 as well, the above will make sobering reading.
The same anomalies in each state this time, on current polling, would yield election results of:
Arizona – Trump +3.0
Florida – Trump +10.5
Georgia – Trump +1.0
Iowa – Trump +12.5
Michigan – Trump +1.4
Minnesota – Harris +5.4
NE-2 – Harris +10.5
Nevada – Trump +1.0
New Hampshire – Harris +3.0
New Mexico – Harris +6.8
North Carolina – Trump +2.8
Ohio – Trump +15.8
Pennsylvania – Trump +1.2
Texas – Trump +10.7
Virginia – Harris +6.1
Wisconsin – Trump +5.8
This would be a clear EC win for Trump; but even on this hypothesis, note the very close margins pf 3% or less in all the 7 key states except Wisconsin, plus also New Hampshire.
BT,
But this isn’t Trump against Joe in the Basement 2020 Redux.
Oh, and funny how you haven’t done a run-down comparing the Democratic Party’s outperformance of the polls in 2022 that turned a ‘Red Tsunami’ into a Red Trickle.
I think you’ve spent too long in the fever swamps of MAGA while you’ve been in North Carolina, BT.
FUBAR @ #572 Tuesday, October 8th, 2024 – 11:48 pm
The Wall Street Journal, flagship of Rupert Murdoch in America. 🙄
Funny how you didn’t include, for balance, the letter released by the American Imams in support of Kamala Harris yesterday. 😐
You need to get out of the fever swamps of Elitist MAGA like the Wall Street Journal, BT.
Her strongest position all cycle.
I think we can take Florida with a grain of salt after Helene.
And Trump is shedding Republican primary voters.
Some RW posters are commenting here like they assume undecided US voters are reading Pollbludger and might fall for their BS. I see FUBAR are now experts on US polling 😐
The average polling error in presidental elections is four points.
It means that is highly unlikely that the current polls are correct and it is more likely that they are 4 points off either way.
It is almost certain that there is a Shy Tory effect, and that this is even further magnified considering Trump is the conservative candidate this time round.
Trump will win with at least 320 electoral votes.
Did Harris just take aim at a governor dealing with the aftermath of one hurricane and the preparations for another?
She is right and DeSantis deserves it…. but it does seem like a campaign error to me.
Who to believe? FUBAR and BT? And Scromo late to the party.
Or NYTimes election guru Nate Cohn.. in short, Trump is racking up the votes in Florida and to a lesser extent New York and California.
This lessens the EC advantage of previous cycles being megaphoned by FUBAR and BT, and the overall national lead by Harris shouldn’t be discounted as much.
A Florida Poll That Should Change the Way You Look at the Election
A big Trump lead in the state paradoxically adds to evidence of a smaller Electoral College edge for him. And a choice by pollsters may be causing them to miss state shifts.….
What’s telling, though, is that the basic political pattern from the midterms still seems evident in the polling today…..
Importantly, the pattern is consistent with the idea that Mr. Trump’s edge in the Electoral College relative to the popular vote has shrunk somewhat since 2020.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/upshot/florida-poll-harris-trump.html
MorningConsult poll..
Harris still leads Trump:
Harris leads Trump by 6 percentage points among likely voters, 51% to 45%, tying a record high set after their Sept. 10 debate. Harris has a slight lead among independent likely voters, and is bolstered by some of her best numbers to date among those who voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
https://pro.morningconsult.com/trackers/2024-presidential-election-polling
Average polling error in Potus elections is not 4pts according to;
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/
Go down to the table headed
“Polling bias is pretty unpredictable from election to election”
For a good summation.
I’d say polls may well be close this election. They could be biased toward trump or Harris. You have a case to say it is more likely the bias is agsinst Trump (he will do better than the polls say). But there should be no confidence in this, pollsters have tried to improve their methods since 2020.
Confessions @ #582 Wednesday, October 9th, 2024 – 6:56 am
Also the Republican voters who never voted for Trump in the Primaries but still retain their classical Republican sensibilities.
This movement got over 100,000 in the Michigan Democratic primary, and the Jill Stein traitor party has been wooing Arab Americans..
In a new video, the Uncommitted National Movement — an organization of Americans who cast “uncommitted” ballots during the Democratic primaries as a protest of the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war — is encouraging voters to support Vice President Kamala Harris.
The group is now telling voters that voting for Harris’s opponent, former president Donald Trump, will lead to more violence and repression in Gaza.
“Who will be elected in November is clear: It’s Trump or it’s Harris,” Lexis Zeidan, a leader of the organization, says in a video shared on X. “And we have to orient less towards who is the better candidate and more towards what is the better antiwar approach in building our collective power.”
Zeidan adds: “It’s clear [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will be doing everything in his power to get Trump elected, and we have to do everything in our power to stop him.”
“As a Palestinian American, the current administration’s handling of this genocide has been beyond enraging and demoralizing, but the reality is that it can get worse,” Zeidan tells viewers. “Nobody wants a Trump presidency more than Netanyahu, because that is his ticket to wiping Palestine off the map
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/10/08/2024-election-campaign-updates-harris-trump/
What’s telling, though, is that the basic political pattern from the midterms still seems evident in the polling today…..
This^
Team Katich @ #585 Wednesday, October 9th, 2024 – 7:34 am
After the barrage of hate and misinformation directed at Kamala Harris by the Trump campaign, Trump himself and other Republicans post Hurricane Helene, you say that about Kamala Harris!?!
Socrates @ #583 Wednesday, October 9th, 2024 – 7:05 am
Add BT and ScromoII to the list. 😐
polls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrrg0Ii9Gv0&ab_channel=JabariJones
Not wanting to break people’s brains but this dissertation on the polling by JVL at The Bulwark is worth reading in full. I’ll break it up into bite-size pieces for those who can’t access it:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-grand-unified-theory-of-why-the
A Grand Unified Theory of Why the Trump-Harris Polls Might Be Wrong
1. Tension
I’m going to tell you two stories about the current polling landscape. These stories aren’t fully incompatible with one another, but they are in tension. And that tension creates a mystery.
The first story is about the Trump-Harris campaign.
We now have an idea of what the steady-state dynamic in this race looks like: It’s Harris +2.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa2274468-de76-4e1c-95f4-6fc4e8306961_2066x1050.jpeg
We’ve been at more-or-less Harris +2 since August 20. During that period we’ve had a ton of exogenous events: jobs reports, an interest rate cut, ramp-up in Israel-Hezbollah, two debates, more Trump scandals than I can remember. Despite everything, 2 points is about where we stayed.
This stability suggests that Harris +2 is the natural balance point unless/until late-deciding voters move in the final two weeks. If (or when) that happens, I would tentatively expect them to break for Harris, since she’s the functional insurgent.
But what I want you to focus on is the extent to which this race has been locked in place for a month and a half. Because as good a campaign as Harris has run—and I think she’s run an excellent campaign—she’s only gained 3 total points since she entered the race in late July. She went from 46 percent to 49 percent.
Which leads us to the second story: During the same period, all of the other numbers for Harris specifically and Democrats generally have been fantastic.
Let’s start with Harris herself. On July 20, her net favorability was -16. Today it’s +0.8. So her favorability jumped 17 points while her general election number went up . . . 3 points. Okay. Not quite sure how that works.
Now let’s look at the generic congressional ballot. On July 21, Republicans held a +0.6 advantage. Today, Democrats are +3, for a 4-point swing.
We’ve also seen congressional numbers moving in the ratings changes issued by the lovable nerds at Cook. For instance:
Since September 5, Cook moved the projections of 12 races towards Democrats and only one towards Republicans. That’s a lot.
And over the last six weeks, Cook shifted three Senate races towards Democrats (Nebraska, Texas, and Nevada) and one toward Republicans (Montana). Now maybe Republicans wind up winning all four of those seats—that would not be an outlier.
But the point is that the market-makers at Cook are seeing movement towards Democrats across the board. In House and Senate races. In Iowa and Illinois and Texas and Nevada. The Cook team saw that movement even while Harris’s margin against Trump remained locked in at +2.
And that’s the story with every piece of data outside the top line Trump-Harris number.1
Down-ballot Democrats are trending upwards. Harris’s favorables moved upwards. The economic news has been—literally without exception—good.
And through all of that, the Harris-Trump margin stayed stuck at +2.
How do you explain that?
I have some theories.
In general, you can put my theories in two buckets: One in which the polls are right and one in which the polls are wrong.
First, let’s look at theories that assume the polls are basically correct.
(1) Harris is a weak candidate running behind congressional Democrats.
This would explain the Cook movement. But not the jump in Harris’s favorables. And it doesn’t pass the eye test. We’ve all seen Harris perform and she’s been consistently good.
A bad candidate looks like this guy: Fresh off of one loss, down in the polls, tricking restaurants into letting him hold campaign events by pretending he’s doing autism awareness.
Qua candidate, Harris has a positive WAR by any reasonable definition.
(2) Trump is a strong candidate running ahead of congressional Republicans.
This view makes a little more sense. No one alive has seen a former-president run in a general election. That status should bring advantages.
But this explanation would be ahistorical: In 2016 and 2020, Trump ran mostly behind congressional Republicans.
Maybe things have changed. Maybe this class of congressional GOP candidates is abnormally weak. Or Trump is abnormally strong. But looking at Trump’s favorables (still net -10), I don’t buy that.
(3) The Trump-Harris choice will break later than down-ballot races.
This campaign is unprecedented in that it features a former president against a last-minute substitute candidate. It makes sense that this novel dynamic would lead voters to take longer than usual to make up their minds—and certainly longer than it has taken them to make up their minds about congressional races, which have followed the usual cycle.
In this view, the tension between the Harris-Trump number and all of the other numbers will be resolved with a larger-than-usual late-break. And, if that break follows the other numbers—which are good for Democrats—then it is likely to go to Harris.
Which brings us to theories that might explain the tension if the polls are wrong.
(4) Polling is unreliable.
My friend Barry Rotholtz lays out this argument in detail here. The short version is: Garbage in, garbage out. The long version is that sentiment data is overrated because it’s hard to forecast future behavior: Answering polls and actually voting are two different actions that only somewhat correlate.
You should read the whole thing.
(5) Polls are underestimating Harris’s support.
This is different from #4 because it assumes a systematic error in one direction.
It’s possible? And the truth is that it would resolve our mystery nice and neat. But it’s also unfalsifiable.
I never want to hang my hat on explanations that (a) flatter my preferences and (b) can’t be disproved.
(6) Polling models do not reflect the new electoral coalitions at the presidential level.
What if the Trump-Harris numbers are broken because the electoral coalitions have changed so much from 2020 to today?
I find this theory attractive.
For 40 years, the Democratic and Republican coalitions were stable. We understood who Democratic voters were and we understood who Republican voters were. Those coalitions evolved, from year to year. But the pace was glacial.
In 2008, the pace began to pick up as Obama dislodged some voters from each side. And in 2016 Trump broke off huge chunks from both coalitions. He was like a one-man realignment.
Why would this make polling hard?
Think about target shooting.
It’s super easy to hit a target that’s not moving.
It’s also fairly easy to hit a target that’s moving at a steady rate.
But hitting a target which is moving at an accelerating and/or unpredictable rate? Good luck. If you don’t understand the rate-change, then you’re just guessing where the target is going to be.
And you can see why having coalitions in flux would make it harder to get an accurate national polling picture, but relatively easier to get an accurate picture at the level of congressional districts, because these voting pools are (a) gerrymandered; (b) clearly defined; and (c) measured every two years.
These theories are not mutually exclusive. I could imagine a real answer as a combination of them. For instance:
National polls are having a hard time measuring Trump-Harris because of the rate of coalition change. And,
This race will break later than usual because it didn’t really start until late July.
But what I want to hammer home is that something is going on in the numbers and it is hard to understand how both trends—Dems and Harris showing across the board gains with Harris-Trump stuck at near parity—can be right.
One more thing: Keep in mind that we’re asking polls to illuminate a very granular level of detail. Trump’s vote share is likely to be somewhere between 46.5 percent and 48 percent. Harris’s vote share is likely to be between 49.5 percent and 51.5 percent.
These are miniscule ranges.
Polls are useful instruments, but all tools have limits.
If we lived in a world where the election would be determined by who gets the most votes, then the polls would be extremely useful. They would tell us to a high degree of certainty who is likely to win the most votes.
But instead, we need to know whether Harris’s margin will be +2.5 or +3.5. It’s unreasonable to ask polling to be able to hone in on a single, determinative net percentage point.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-grand-unified-theory-of-why-the