Political polls and real polls – The trends are there – Top 3 takeaways – October 24, 2024
- The trend is there. Early voting is underway in almost every state, along with mail-in voting that has been happening for weeks. The trend is there… everywhere. Democrats are more likely to vote by mail while Republicans eagerly line up at the polls. There are only seven states today, and none of them swing states, in which we are lacking partisan vote tracking which were thrown away. And the news for Republicans continues to get better every day. Heading into Election Day 2020, Democrats had outperformed Republicans by 14.3% nationally. As of Tuesday, the Democrats’ turnout advantage stood at 10 points. As of Wednesday, it was down to 6, and given the trends we continue to see, it’s likely that later today the partisan vote gap will be even smaller. It’s obviously still too early to know how this story will end, but as I mentioned earlier this week, the trend is very much in Trump’s favor. Consider this. If Republicans did not make further progress in closing the turnout gap between today and Election Day – and simply maintained the margins we are currently seeing, Republicans would enter Election Day with 8% turnout. .3% higher than four years ago. in an election cycle in which Joe Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points. Are some of the new early voters former Election Day voters? Yes. Do we know how non-party voters vote when they go to the polls? No. But you don’t have to be a data scientist or election analyst to know that a 6-point turnout deficit is significantly better than 14.3 points and that’s where we were on Wednesday.
- In Florida, the news is even better for Team Trump and probably for the losing Republicans. Florida Democrats had higher pre-Election Day turnout than Republicans in each of the previous two presidential elections, both won by Donald Trump. As of Wednesday, Republicans had increased their voter turnout lead in the state to nearly 5 points — the best pre-election advantage for the GOP in Florida history. And just like the country as a whole, it appears the margins are well-positioned to grow, with Republicans boosting turnout through in-person early voting in far greater numbers than Democrats. Here’s another way to analyze what we’re seeing happening so far. The country as a whole so far sits more than 8 points to the right of where it was before Election Day four years ago, and Florida is 11 points to the right of the country today. If Republicans continue to “overwhelm the vote,” as Trump says, there could be many races in play on Election Day that experts haven’t flagged as tossups today… t’s true in Florida and it’s true. across the country. And speaking of Florida and early voting, the former and possibly future president of the United States said Wednesday that’s exactly how he would vote. So we can expect to see it soon at an early voting location near you. And from the actual polls to the political polls…
- Amendments 3 and 4 are likely to be debated. Florida released its first credible poll in more than two weeks. It was released by the Hill/Emerson yesterday. To explain what I mean by credible sample… 39.4% of registered voters in Florida are Republican. 31.8% are Democrats. 28.8% are affiliated with the NPA and a minor party. This means that any credibility poll sampled within that state should be particularly close to these divisions. Here’s a hint, most aren’t. In fact, they’re not even close and for that reason, they’re not worth thinking about and certainly not worth talking about. But the Hill/Emerson poll released yesterday is the closest to an accurate sampling of the state I’ve seen this election cycle. Their sample undersampled Democrats and Republicans by 0.4%, while oversampling NPAs by 0.8%. That’s about what you’d expect from a fishfinder. And the big numbers were especially good for Trump in his home state. The poll showed an 8-point overall lead for Trump with majority support from women in the state. To date, the only potentially competitive state in which Donald Trump has shown a lead when it comes to women is Arizona. This is worth watching closely in other swing states as we get closer to Election Day – if Trump is indeed trending better with women than in the previous two presidential elections. The other notable race that made headlines was the Florida Senate race, with Rick Scott shown with a slightly greater than 4 point lead over Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. The amendments seemed even more interesting to me. Even though pollsters still don’t seem to want to ask about the other 4 amendments on our ballots this cycle, they still regularly ask about Amendments 3 and 4. I was particularly interested to see what this poll had to say because , as mentioned, the sample was credible for a change, but also because, as we are two weeks away from Election Day, many survey respondents are not only indicating how they intend to vote, but rather how they have already voted. Nearly 11% of participants in the Harris/Emerson poll had already voted. Regarding Amendment 3, the recreational marijuana amendment, just over 60% of Floridians expressed support and just under 6% said they were unsure. Regarding Amendment 4, the abortion amendment, 52% of Floridians participating in the survey indicated support, with another 17% saying they were unsure. 60% support is the magic number needed for the proposed amendments to pass. This shows that the outcome of both amendments is likely to be very close. Amendment 3 seems to be in a somewhat favorable position to pass, while Amendment 4 probably seems to come down to how laggards usually break on whether it will pass. For decades, Floridians have been accustomed to very close general elections. While it’s unlikely to happen at the top of the list this time around, the high-profile amendments at the bottom could be the election that happens this time around.
