Everybody is obsessed with the polling one month or less before a general election. Upon that you may depend. And we are assured that the current race is a nailbiter, that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are neck and neck like two racehorses in the stretch. It ain’t necessarily so. For one thing, the Republicans have been dumping a lot of GOP-slanted polls into the mix and aggregator polls — 538 being chief among them — take the average of the cobbled together polls. So of course they’re going to show Trump polling a lot higher than he actually is at this time.
Before we look at these polls, let me draw your attention to two key factors that are not getting as publicized as they should, so you can consider their clear importance. 1. Trump still has an 8-day gap in his appearance calendar this month. This is completely unprecedented in the last month of a presidential election; 2. Yesterday it was a 10-day gap but an extra rally in Pennsylvania was announced for Monday, October 14 and an extra rally in Georgia for Tuesday the 15th.
There is nothing after that October 15 Atlanta rally until October 23, which is another Georgia rally. Okay. You’re seeing a couple of patterns spring forth here. One is that Team Trump is rudderless, basically, and putting together Trump’s appearance calendar on the fly — going from internal polling, is my best speculation. It’s well known that the last month of a campaign the internal polls dictate the ground game, and the local journalists then become the go-to source of information. After all, when you get right on down to it, politics is always local. The last month of a general election proves that point over and over again.
So that’s one pattern, Team Trump putting the rest of the Trump campaign together on the fly. The other pattern which is clearly emerging is that if there’s not a panic afoot at Trump HQ over Pennsylvania and Georgia, that would be new information. Because all the moves being made on the board, all the actions taken, are indicating that Trump is worried sick about both states, particularly Pennsylvania.
Trump has taken a massive shellacking in Pennsylvania since Kamala Harris entered the race. He was as many as seven points ahead and he’s lost all that and more. Now the New York Times has Harris four points up, which is getting out of the statistical error margin and into the certain. And Trump can’t handle that. He’s got to get back Pennsylvania and if that, heaven forfend, is not possible, then he absolutely must get both North Carolina and Georgia, and those two states are not showing signs of certainty for his column, either.
So to combat panic, Team Trump is dumping a lot of lousy polls (“lousy” defined here as GOP-weighted, as opposed to balanced, scientific) into the polling mix, which the polls aggregators are picking up on and reporting. And the legacy media loves all this business because it serves their prime directive of political reporting, which is that All Presidential Races Shall Be Nailbiters. Else how do you get the eyeballs and the clicks and the ratings? But it’s in the process of blowing up. Take a look at this. Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles:
Happy Saturday all. We are now officially in the last month of the 2024 election! I feel good, and much rather be us than them. Harris-Walz have a steady lead in national polling, and we are much closer to 270 in the battlegrounds today. Harris is far better liked than Trump and has closed the gap on the economy in recent weeks, even taking the lead in some polls. We have meaningful advantages in money, field/volunteers, and enthusiasm, which makes it far more likely we gain in this last month of the election and win.
The Harris campaign is hungry, aggressively fighting to expand our coalition (Liz Cheney!) something I discuss in the MSNBC clip above. We got another great jobs report yesterday and the good economic news just keeps coming. Senate polling remains encouraging, with us holding everywhere except Montana which our team feels remains a true toss up. Lighting could strike in the FL, NE, TX Senate races. All three far closer than Republicans want right now and the incumbents are all in their own ways terrible candidates. House Dems are optimistic and working hard. In a new memo released this morning the DCCC writes:
With one month left until Election Day, Democrats are well-positioned to win the House majority. House Democrats have the candidates, message, money, and mobilization efforts to connect with voters, and the DCCC is confident that we will build on this momentum in the closing weeks to win in November. […]
While they released polls in many states this week the states that have received the most red wave polls few weeks are Montana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Over the past 10 days, depending on how you characterize the pollsters, they released at least 5 and as many 7 polls in Pennsylvania alone. Their recent flood of polls in NC and PA tipped the Real Clear Politics polling average for each state to Trump, which then in turn got Trump to 281 in their corrupt Electoral College map. Yes, in Real Clear Politics Trump is now winning the election due to their gamesmanship.
Of last 15 general election polls released in PA, 12 have right/GOP affiliations.
Their campaign to game the polling averages and make it appear like Trump is winning – when he isn't – escalated in last few days.
Polling averages new post-Helene MAGA disinfo target. pic.twitter.com/UVTUWQu7pz
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 11, 2024
This is why we all have a feeling that we’re the Ingrid Bergman character in the movie Gaslight. We know what we are seeing and hearing. We know the wild enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and Gwen Walz and Doug Emhoff, etc., when they take stage wherever they go. And we know the dwindling crowds that Donald Trump attracts, where he literally stands in the dark as grim music plays. And then he ends his rallies with his stupid, fixed-feet, two hand jerking movements. Everything in Trump world these days is dull, repetitive and predictable. But this is the part you’re going to love.
It's OK, let them keep posting this, because then people will STOP voting for him thinking he's ahead and we will get more people to vote if they think the VP is behind….😉
— 🇺🇸🦅Lady Karma🇺🇦 (@LA_Karma1) October 12, 2024
I agree totally with the logic of this last tweet. If anybody is going to get complacent, let it be them. Let us have more of the same as what we saw in 2022 when Kevin McCarthy was crowing about a “40-seat margin” and the polls predicted a “red tsunami” which was in fact closer to a pink trickle, if that.
Trump is in trouble. He’s particularly in trouble in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Harris is ahead 1 point in a Wall Street Journal poll in Georgia. Also, Harris is killing Trump amongst Black voters in Pennsylvania, 81% to his 16%. If that holds across the country, color DonOld done.
And hold it may. All Trump has to offer is a lot of hysteria about “Occupied America” and “Liberation Day” and batshit crazy slogans. He’s putting Stephen Miller up on stage as his front man, his warm up act. And evidently Chris and Susie are trying to figure out where to schedule Trump in to speak, in the last push before November 5. They’re looking for some kind of a magical formula (when they’re not busy looking for their next job) and they’re not going to find it. Their candidate is a dud and it’s going to take more than the right shade of lipstick to make him look like anything other than the pig he is.
Oh the irony of them losing because of believing their own lies about a horse race.
Because it IS a horse race – between a donkey and a thoroughbred.
This time, the donkey’s not the donkey.
Such an excellent word describing “… shellacking …” It unambiguously gets across why “… Trump is in trouble …” because all he has left, in desperate response, is to “… offer a lot of hysteria … and batshit crazy slogans …” Trump is very burnt toast irrespective of any panic fuelled counter attempts on his pathetic part, to scrape the resulting shite off his own shoes; a byproduct of his own verbal diarrhoea, from his ranting and unhinged diatribes.
I have no idea who is *advising* this apocalyptic strategy of Trump’s, but I don’t see it as wise. It’s very theatrical but it’s not grounded in reality. The “liberation” of Aurora, Colorado is especially bizarre. I would give anything for some insider tell-all book to let us know who is making these crazy choices.
Why doesn’t Trump have rallies booked? Trump must pay for rallies up front as most venues (?) have learned. And Miller is out with Trump to babysit him and “write his speeches”.
I have no idea who is *advising* this apocalyptic strategy of Trump’s, but I don’t see it as wise. It’s very theatrical but it’s not grounded in reality. The “liberation” of Aurora, Colorado is especially bizarre. I would give anything for some insider tell-all book to let us know who is making these crazy choices.
Between the 16th of this month and the 23rd there is nothing on Trump’s event calendar. This is unheard of, the last few weeks before an election. I wonder if they’re throwing darts at a map of the U.S. and deciding to do their rallies that way. :))
One of the problems with these polls is that the scum bucket believes them and will claim that the election is rigged because “the polls”, which is what he did last time. Then his army of morons will raise hell.
They may or they may not. A lot of people went to prison for January 6. They all thought that they would have Trump protect them — either by paying for their lawyers or by pardoning them or both. That didn’t happen.
I believe tRUMPS morons will be looking for trouble when he loses, but thanks to the corrupt Supreme Court, Biden will be able to do pretty much whatever he has to , to keep the maga fools in line
I sincerely hope it doesn’t get down to another riot on January 6. My prayer for all this, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, is that Trump loses by such a margin that he’ll look and sound ridiculous talking about a second stolen election.
“Also, Harris is killing Trump amongst Black voters in Pennsylvania, 81% to his 16%.”
The fact that 16% of Black voters in Pennsylvania would even *consider* Trump (or any Republican) as the better candidate should be an absolutely depressing thought.
When you’re dealing with statistics there is always some surprise. I can’t believe that 63 million people voted for Trump in 2016 or that 73 million voted for him in 2020. I can’t believe that there are one million people that stupid in this country — but there are, and that’s a cold, hard fact of life.
I guess the huge swath of white people willing to ignore truth, human decency, history, consequences, etc. didn’t end in 1865. They may have scattered like cockroaches but we are still infested. I will give the insects their due…the cockroaches don’t kill each other. I suspect they will be here long after we’ve eliminated ourselves. The winners of Darwin’s contest. Nobody would walk into a pet store and ask for a group of animals that would destroy their habitat and eventually kill each other. Sounds insane and it is insane. Pure phucking insanity.
Its easy trump has to have the faked or as he says rigged polling to show he’s ahead. That way when he loses he can cry cheat they cheated i was way ahead in polling. But people are actually getting tired of hearing that. He has no policy ideas . Making interest rates on car loans tax deductible. Do the math most people might see a refund increase of 20-25 dollars. Its all a scam a donald trump ponzi scheme
Chris Bouzy has kept me grounded during this election. His ability to analyze data and communicate that either at Spoutible.com or through his account on twitler has allowed me to remain calm.
We know that trump is going to lie, cheat, steal to try and get his way; however, he is not in the WH this time so it should be more difficult. Although, they are trying to work through the state certifications this time – this is my biggest worry. That is why we need to soundly defeat him with our votes so there can be no doubt about who won the election.