Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, August 30, 2024

State Of The Race

 Paul Campos dropped a "state of the race" post yesterday that incorporated a high quality poll that showed Harris up five points nationally. He than cautioned that Trump has always outperformed is polling, whereas Republicans in general have underperformed. It's weird, but we see it in a lot of Senate polling where Harris and Trump are effectively tied, as in Nevada and Arizona, but the Democratic Senate candidates are holding pretty comfortable leads.

However - and this maybe be hopium - but pollsters have been burned badly (2016) and mildly (2020) by underestimating Trump's support. They really, really don't want to do that again. 

The question becomes:

- Is Trump outperforming other Republicans by significant margins? 
- Are pollsters weighting pro-Trump numbers to avoid their previous mistakes?

I'm struggling to conceive of a Trump-Rosen voter in Nevada. Or a Trump-Gallego voter in Arizona. I know they exist, but in those numbers? 

Campos concludes by noting that Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts were hampered by the pandemic in 2020. That's not an issue this time, and the Democrats are heavily invested in GOTV efforts whereas Trump is siphoning off Republican fundraising for purposes that are probably illegal.

I'd rather be us than them.

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