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Date: October 12, 2024 at 12:11:46
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
URL: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
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Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race
Trump says he’s winning. Harris says she could lose. But polls show a
dead heat.
By Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Tyler Pager
October 12, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Aspiring members of Donald Trump’s potential second administration
gathered Thursday at Washington’s Royal Sands Social Club — a bar
designed to resemble the state of Florida — for a fundraiser that felt like a
victory party.
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Chris LaCivita, the campaign’s top strategist, told the crowd of lobbyists
and former administration officials that the former president would collect
at least 289 electoral college votes in November — enough to secure the
White House. Vice President Kamala Harris, he added, had plateaued in
internal data, according to multiple attendees.
“Everyone in the room told me we were going to win,” said one person,
who described the mood as “jubilant” and who like others spoke on the
condition of anonymity to describe private events.
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Less than 24 hours later, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon
convened a Friday all-staff Zoom meeting to also predict victory — but
with a much more sobering message. Nothing was certain, she told the
roughly 3,000 staffers who joined the call.
“This is not going to be a race where one day we wake up and the sun
shines and the clouds part and we’ve won by five points,” O’Malley Dillon
told the team, according to someone who was on the call. “It’s just not
that kind of race. It is tight, and we are going to just keep driving. Our data
is telling us that we are winning and we are going to stay ahead, but it is
by the skin of our teeth.”
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The opposing messages were delivered as both campaigns have
independently come to what is actually a shared understanding of the
state of the race. Internal polls on both sides roughly match the public
numbers that show the race in the seven battleground states within the
statistical margin of error and mostly unchanged in recent weeks. Both
campaigns calculate victory based on their own turnout models.
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But the two camps are treating that information in divergent ways.
Trump’s team has embraced bravado as it tries to keep its candidate on
message and encourage him to avoid the sort of high-profile national
audiences that might motivate Harris’s supporters.
Trump declined Fox News’s invitation to another presidential debate
within hours of the offer this week, giving up a potential audience of about
75 million Americans. He announced rallies in California and New York —
uncompetitive states where no Republican has won an electoral vote in 35
years. He authorized the leak of internal polling that showed a statistically
tied battleground race with the cheerful conclusion: “Trump holds an
edge.”
“You communicate and you push and you demonstrate that you are
ahead,” LaCivita said in an interview Friday. “But you run like you are
behind.”
Vice President Kamala Harris’s team has, by contrast, embraced the
“underdog” spirit of her July launch, hoping to motivate more action from
her supporters and grab the attention of those sitting on the sidelines.
Top aides spent last week warning that the $1 billion they raised in 80
days was not enough — never mind the roughly 3-to-1 spending
advantage over the Trump campaign in August. The Harris campaign
deployed former president Barack Obama to admonish Black men for their
somewhat soft support of the vice president, as she called for another
debate and hustled between mainstream television programs that Trump
has avoided.
Harris speaks at a rally on Thursday in Chandler, Ariz. (Caitlin O'Hara for
The Washington Post)
In the face of Trump’s cockiness, the Democratic mood has dipped to a
mix of desperation and determination. Several people close to Harris
conceded they had lost some momentum — and needed something to stir
the race up. Harris advisers say they need more ad spending, more paid
canvassing, more volunteer energy, more media placements, more
surrogates and more activity from their candidates on bigger platforms.
Even as they dominate most advertising mediums, they have begun to fret
about Trump’s advantage in direct mail, shifting funds to deal with what
the tracking firm Mintt says is a 4-to-1 Republican advantage.
“It’s going to take all of us together,” O’Malley Dillon told her team on the
Friday Zoom call. “So feel confident in the plan.”
At the core of the calculations of both campaigns are separate research
finding that many of the targeted voters in key states still do not have fully
formed views of Harris, who only became a candidate for president in
July. Views of Trump, by contrast, are nearly universally set. That has
made it more important for Harris to make a splash in the final weeks.
“The more people see the real Kamala Harris and the real Tim Walz, the
more that I believe they will do the comparison and vote for her,” Rep.
Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said, referring to the nominee and her running
mate, the Minnesota governor. “We’ve got to get people energized in this
state because it’s coming down to voter turnout. We’ve got to see
passion.”
The lack of definition around Harris has also shaped the advertising wars.
Ads for the vice president mostly seek to provide contrast, mixing positive
introductory messages about her and her plans with negative depictions
of Trump.
The Trump campaign instead has focused its recent advertising on trying
to define Harris as an extreme ideologue who is not on the side of regular
Americans. The strategy echoes the approach of other incumbent
presidents, like Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004, who seek to
define their newcomer opponents as out-of-touch before they can fully
introduce themselves to the American people.
The Trump campaign has put the most money in October advertising
behind ads about Harris’s past support for taxpayer-funded gender-
reassignment surgery for prisoners, according to AdImpact. The Harris
campaign has called the ads “false,” pointing to federal court rulings that
have upheld the right for inmates to get health care, but has not clarified
her position on the issue.
The Trump ads run in both English and Spanish, often around sporting
events with more male audiences. “Kamala is for they/them. Donald Trump
is for you,” one of the spots concludes.
Trump has also chosen to focus on his rallies, which tend to be watched
primarily by his supporters. In a sign of her desire to elevate the race,
Harris has repeatedly urged more Americans to tune into Trump events,
which are rarely covered by the major cable news networks, to see what
he is offering.
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a
statement he would win “because he is out working Kamala Harris every
day.” The Harris campaign declined to comment for this story.
Several Trump advisers said they did not see an upside to doing a second
debate because they believe Harris needs a momentum moment more
than they do. In the final weeks, the campaign is likely to focus
advertisements on immigration, the economy and a clip on the television
show “The View” where Harris initially said she wouldn’t do anything
differently than Biden during his term before citing appointing a
Republican to her Cabinet.
“People say, ‘Why aren’t we doing the debates?’ The question is, ‘Why do
them?’” another Trump adviser said. “They could try to create a contrast
with us. We’re going to starve her of that opportunity.”
Tony Fabrizio, the campaign’s pollster, has urged the campaign to talk
about the economy. Campaign advisers have discussed limiting interviews
and appearances outside of rallies.
Public polling averages have been so close for so long that divining their
meaning has become a matter more akin to faith than science. Between
Harris’s entrance in the race and early September, high-quality national
public polls have shown the Democratic ticket move from a two-point
deficit to a two-point advantage against Trump, with corresponding
movements in most swing states. But that drift slowed or stopped in
recent weeks — leaving a largely stable race that can be interpreted
different ways depending on one’s assumptions of who will actually turn
out to vote and how the polling sample is designed.
The differing vibes from the two campaigns also reflect the differing
styles of the candidates. In each of his races for the White House, Trump
has exaggerated his dominance, often citing polls that have no statistical
significance. He frequently encourages those around him to shower him
with praise. Before landing in Pennsylvania this month for a rally in Butler
— the site of a July 13 assassination attempt on his life — he gathered with
his advisers at the window of his plane to look at the crowd down below,
which appeared similar in size to other events.
“It’s a monster,” one of his top advisers said, according to a video of the
exchange posted on X by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.). “It’s a lot of people. I
don’t think I have ever seen that much before.” Trump agreed, as others
praised him on the plane.
LaCivita kept up that same enthusiasm Thursday night when he told the
fundraising crowd in Washington that Harris had to place more
advertisements on TV because they didn’t have a good message. He
described polling that he said showed Trump ahead in major states and
crowed that Trump had a better message, according to people present. A
second attendee said people were partially there to network for jobs in a
second Trump administration.
Harris, by contrast, has less interest in such positive talk. Aides say she
has become more comfortable in recent weeks accepting unscripted
appearances on news shows, at town halls and on podcasts as it has
become more clear to her campaign that she needs to communicate with
more voters.
Former congressman Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) said Trump holds a slight edge
over Harris in western Pennsylvania — though he said that in
conversations with voters in recent days, Harris still has an opportunity to
win over Trump-leaning voters. He said he recently spoke to someone who
voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, and was 60 percent likely to
vote for Trump again, attributing his preference to Trump because he is a
known quantity.
“That tells me though that if Trump hasn’t fully closed the deal, Harris still
has an opportunity if people get a chance to know her,” he said. “Trump
knows that people are not going to change their opinions on him very
much regardless of what he says or does. Her strategy to be more active
and visible makes sense.”
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[442330] [442331] [442338] [442333] [442335] [442336] |
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442330 |
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 12:17:59
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
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It's simple. Harris need people to believe it's close so
they turn out.
They're not going to overplay their hand after what
happened to Hillary in 2016 and voters got complacent
and stayed home.
Trump needs his gullibles to believe he's winning so he
can claim fraud when he loses, and they'll do violence
when he calls.
It's not complicated.
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[442331] [442338] [442333] [442335] [442336] |
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442331 |
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 12:50:28
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
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how in the world do you come to those conclusions? it’s pretty much
always been a close race. and since i’m the one posting polls that
consistently show a close race while people like bopp say it’s not gonna
be close why aren’t you thanking me?
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[442338] [442333] [442335] [442336] |
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442338 |
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 16:28:32
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
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Hmm...maybe watching the last election he lost? He's
doing the same damn playbook, oldie. The exact same!
You would have to be an idiot not to see it.
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442333 |
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 14:48:00
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
URL: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/12/harris-trump-pennsylvania-arizona-poll-00183543 |
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It's obvious. Anyone who claims this race isn't extremely close right now is
either not paying attention or just living in a bubble of wishes & delusions.
Politico
"Harris has slight lead in Pennsylvania while Trump keeps Arizona advantage,
polls show
The numbers across both crucial swing states continue to point to a very close
presidential race.
By GISELLE RUHIYYIH EWING
10/12/2024
New polling from The New York Times/Siena College shows Donald Trump with
a slight lead in Arizona, and Kamala Harris similarly ahead by a narrow margin in
Pennsylvania — a divergence of the Rust and Sun Belt states that continues to
point to a very close presidential race.
In Arizona, Trump is ahead, 51 percent to 46 percent, virtually unchanged from
his 50 percent to Harris’ 45 percent result reported in a September poll. In the
Pennsylvania poll, which was also cosponsored by the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Harris leads, 50 percent to 47 percent.
Each poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The polls
were conducted via telephone between Oct. 7 to 10, among 808 voters in
Arizona and 857 voters in Pennsylvania.
Neither candidate scored highly on the favorability scale. In Pennsylvania,
Harris notched a 49 percent favorability rating versus an identical percentage
who viewed her unfavorably. For Trump, more voters view him unfavorably (54
percent) than favorably (45 percent).
The candidates’ popularity among voters is flipped in Arizona, where voters
were split evenly on the former president (49 percent favorable to 49 percent
unfavorable), while the vice president was slightly underwater (46 percent
favorable to 51 percent unfavorable).
Despite Trump’s lead in Arizona, voters split from Republicans down the ticket,
with 48 percent of respondents saying they would vote for the Democratic
Senate candidate, Rep. Ruben Gallego, compared to 41 percent for Republican
Kari Lake. In Pennsylvania’s Senate race, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey led
Republican Dave McCormick by a margin that matches Harris’ edge over
Trump at the top of the ticket: 48 percent to 44 percent.
The economy remained the primary issue of concern for voters in both states,
with respondents expressing more faith in Trump’s ability to steer the economy
than Harris. But in Pennsylvania, voters also indicated that abortion was a key
concern — and Harris has a nearly 20-point lead over Trump on whom voters
trust more to handle the issue.
Pennsylvania is a critical battleground — of the swing states, it has the greatest
number of electoral votes — with both campaigns prioritizing the state in the
leadup to the election. Harris led Trump by a nearly identical margin to current
polling, 50 percent to 46 percent, in another New York Times/Philadelphia
Inquirer/Siena College poll last month."
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 15:00:12
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
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anybody that says anything based on polls is just...well, you can fill in the blank...
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[442336] |
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442336 |
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Date: October 12, 2024 at 15:11:43
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Harris and Trump take divergent paths in a tied race |
URL: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4929465-pollsters-worry-underestimating-trump/ |
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"Polling is the worst form of measuring weight and public opinion in the population..."
How pollsters are trying to get it right in the Trump-Harris race
by Jared Gans - 10/12/24 5:00 PM ET
Pollsters say they are employing a range of methodologies to ensure that they are not underestimating Donald Trump amid survey after survey that shows a dead heat in various swing states.
If the polls are accurate, the battle between the former president and Vice President Harris will truly go down to the wire.
But the numbers are being viewed with skepticism in some quarters given how pollsters missed how strong Trump’s support was in the 2016 and 2020 races. For Democrats, the close numbers have them hitting the panic button, fearing they need Harris to be ahead by a few points to feel safe.
“We’ve done everything we know how to do,” said Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette Law School Poll, based in Wisconsin. “We’ve worried about it a lot. We’ve made some changes to try to address it, but we’ll only truly know in November when we get the vote count back.”
Polling has been the standard of measuring where a presidential election stands for decades, going back to the 1930s.
But the industry was rocked by the two most recent presidential elections in 2016, when Trump scored an upset victory over Hillary Clinton to be elected president, and 2020, when President Biden prevailed but by a much closer margin than some had anticipated.
Although national polling heading into the election gave Clinton a couple-point lead, a similar margin to her popular vote win, Trump outperformed expectations in the key states to win the election. And polling averages were further off four years later in the main battlegrounds even as they predicted the right winner.
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But pollsters have emphasized that each election cycle is different, and observers should not just presume that Trump is performing better than polling currently shows because of the past.
John Cluverius, the assistant director of the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said pollsters are always tweaking their methodologies from cycle to cycle. They must respond to external factors, he said, such as the fact that polling is becoming increasingly expensive, especially if a pollster wants to be accurate. At the same time, the country has become even more closely divided and polarized.
Pollsters have made some specific adjustments in response to the past two presidential election results.
Cluverius said many pollsters in 2016 did not weight their results for educational background to be representative of the population, which is not a Trump-specific issue but was relevant in the election that year, with the GOP candidate performing strongly among voters without a college degree.
He said that issue was a simpler fix, but 2020 demonstrated how pollsters have struggled with non-response among certain voters, many of whom supported Trump that year.
“The clearest sort of story that you can tell about 2020 is that there were specific Trump voters, not all Trump voters, the sort of very specific Trump voters who were less likely to pick up the phone in 2020, and there wasn’t an obvious way to counter that,” Cluverius said.
Franklin said the largest change in polling methodology since 2016 has been a shift from all interviews happening by phone to hybrid sampling as people have become increasingly less likely to pick up the phone.
“By 2022, we would dial 100 numbers in order to get one person to pick up,” he said. “That was just driving costs way, way up. And it wasn’t people refusing to do interviews. It was not picking up so that we couldn’t get the foot in the door.”
Marquette now works off a list of registered voters, allowing them to know that those they’re contacting are registered and match up a voter to a phone number and email address so pollsters can text or email the person. This has caused 80 percent of interviews to be done online and only 20 percent by phone call, Franklin said.
Regarding the specific circumstances in 2016 and 2020, he said pollsters are making an “extra effort” to reach the areas that lean toward Trump that were previously underrepresented in past years.
“That’s hard to do in the sense that I can call the right people, or I can email them, but I can’t make them respond, and so that remains the challenge to the whole industry,” Franklin said.
But he added that he believes the sample has been improved and Marquette is doing a better job of getting a representative sample.
Cluverius noted other methods pollsters have implemented to address the issue with non-response, like specifically increasing the number of Republicans polled or using a concept called “weighting on recall vote.”
This method works by asking respondents how they voted in the last election to weigh the poll based on the margin that one candidate won. But it, along with other tactics, has some flaws.
New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn explained last weekend why the Times/Siena College poll doesn’t employ this method, including that voters may not remember or misremember how they voted and therefore it may overestimate support for the party that lost the last election.
But Cohn said more pollsters are using this method as they believe it could be more accurate now in a more politically engaged environment.
Cluverius said he believes if weighted properly, this method can be “fairly reliable.”
He said UMass Lowell weights the 2020 registered voter profile by self-reported 2020 votes, but that it also uses a likely voter model based on how respondents answer questions like their intention to vote, how closely they’ve been following news about the election and how often they say they vote in presidential elections.
“In the end, it really boils down to trying to be as transparent as possible, trying to treat a poll as the start of a conversation about the state of the race, rather than the end of a conversation,” he said.
Some pollsters maintain the best way is to stay the course, especially those who saw less of an error in 2016 and 2020.
Jim Lee, the president and CEO of Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Polling & Research, said his firm has made “little, if any” changes to their methodology because it was one of the firms that did not significantly undercount Trump voters in polls in the lead-up to 2016 and 2020. The firm was only polling Pennsylvania in 2016 but had begun taking national polls, too, by 2020.
An analysis from RealClearPolitics found Susquehanna polling on average had the second smallest polling error both over the course of 2014 to 2022 and in the 2020 election.
Lee argued that the idea of Trump voters being underrepresented was more legitimate in the past when more people were uncomfortable telling pollsters that they supported him, but he believes that was a “unique phenomenon.”
He said weighting the polls to increase the weight of Trump voters could be a “Trojan horse” showing Trump to be in a better position than he actually is because pollsters need to make “a lot of assumptions” to use that method.
“That obviously then puts Trump in a much better position on the head-to-head question,” Lee said. “But you have other firms like me that haven’t really had first-hand experience with that problem, and so we haven’t felt like our system was broken.”
Cluverius said he hopes regardless of the results that this year will be an opportunity to have a “vigorous conversation” about polling and methodologies.
“We think about democracy. It’s the worst form of government except for all the others,” he said. “Polling is the worst form of measuring weight and public opinion in the population except for all the others. We learn a lot more from high quality polling than we do from focus groups or vibes or early vote data or qualitative interviews.”
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