Democrats Worried About Kamala’s ‘Popularity’
Despite the failures of past polling efforts to accurately capture the support for Republican candidates Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020, Democrat pollsters are once again finding themselves at a crossroads. The polls during the 2016 presidential election consistently underestimated Trump’s performance against Hillary Clinton. Similarly, in 2020, Trump outperformed poll predictions despite ultimately losing to Joe Biden. This led to an intensive review by top polling firms to address these discrepancies.
As the Democratic National Convention recently unfolded in Chicago, party pollsters were left questioning whether their newfound optimism about Kamala Harris’ recent surge in the polls reflects reality or if they’re repeating past mistakes. According to the RealClearPolitics average, Harris is narrowly ahead of Trump by 1.5 points, while FiveThirtyEight.com shows a slightly larger lead of 3.7 points.
However, the reality behind these numbers might not be as rosy as it appears. Chauncey McLean, president of Harris’ super PAC Future Forward, revealed that their internal numbers are much tighter. “Our data shows a much closer race,” McLean noted, emphasizing that the public figures might not fully reflect the situation.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’ campaign chairwoman, admitted that the campaign does not have a clear path to victory. “We’re in a polarized nation, and despite the challenges, Donald Trump retains significant support. Every vote will be crucial,” she said.
In 2020, Trump secured 74.2 million votes, the second highest number ever received in a U.S. presidential election, trailing only Biden’s 81.2 million. In 2016, Trump won with just under 63 million votes.
The challenge for pollsters in 2024 is whether they have addressed the issues that led to inaccurate forecasts in the past. Nick Gourevitch of Global Strategy Group acknowledges the difficulty, stating, “No pollster can confidently claim they’ve fixed all the issues. That would be unrealistic.”
Former Biden pollster John Anzalone echoed this uncertainty, suggesting, “Something will happen in 2024 that we can’t predict right now.” The upcoming election promises to be a closely watched and unpredictable contest, with pollsters on edge about whether they’ve truly learned from previous mistakes.
