2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[crazy canuck]

An interesting article in The Globe and Mail, behind a paywall, Interviewing a number of pollsters, who indicate that there's a concern that the reason the race looks so close is because a lot of effort has gone into correcting for past years when Trump support was under reported in the polls. 

The upshot, according to one of the people that was interviewed,  is that all the surprises on election day will be in favour of Harris.  That person said it's very difficult to judge how much the polls might be over corrected but estimated it could range from getting it exactly right to 9 points off in Harris' favour.

That's a tempting theory to accept. We'll soon see.

[Josquius]

An interesting article in The Globe and Mail, behind a paywall, Interviewing a number of posters, who indicate that there's a concern that the reason the race looks so close is because a lot of effort has gone into correcting for past years when Trump support was under reported in the polls. 

The upshot, according to one of the people that was interviewed,  is that all the surprises on election day will be in favour of Harris.  That person said it's very difficult to judge how much the polls might be over corrected but estimated it could range from getting it exactly right to 9 points off in Harris' favour.

I've heard this one.

Another curious take I've heard is that things are really weirdly close in many deep republican states whilst swing states are competitive or Trump leaning- the explanation being this is due to the republicans playing their games and throwing out bogus polls in those states.
Seems a bit wishful but for sure the fake polls thing is happening so....

[Barrister]

Another curious take I've heard is that things are really weirdly close in many deep republican states whilst swing states are competitive or Trump leaning- the explanation being this is due to the republicans playing their games and throwing out bogus polls in those states.
Seems a bit wishful but for sure the fake polls thing is happening so....

I really don't buy this at all.

Poll aggregators / election predictors know who are reliable polls and who aren't.  So even if some pollsters are more aligned with the Dems or GOP, they know which specific pollsters can be trusted and which can't.  So I really don't think there are any "fake polls" being added to the mix.

Go look at https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model  Nate Silver isn't the only election modeler, but he's a big name.  You can see exactly which polls he uses, how much they're weighted, and how they're adjusted.

The Silver Bulletin polling averages are a little fancy. They adjust for whether polls are conducted among registered or likely voters and house effects. They weight more reliable polls more heavily. And they use national polls to make inferences about state polls and vice versa. It requires a few extra CPU cycles — but the reward is a more stable average that doesn't get psyched out by outliers.

The line about outliers, for example, contained a link to a poll which has Harris up 17 points in Wisconsin - not matched by any other poll, so I gather it's just thrown out.

Silver could definitely be off (although his prediction is that it's 50/50, so anything other than a huge win by either candidate won't prove him wrong) - but if he's off it's because of something far more subtler than "fake polls".

[Josquius]

Another curious take I've heard is that things are really weirdly close in many deep republican states whilst swing states are competitive or Trump leaning- the explanation being this is due to the republicans playing their games and throwing out bogus polls in those states.
Seems a bit wishful but for sure the fake polls thing is happening so....

I really don't buy this at all.

Poll aggregators / election predictors know who are reliable polls and who aren't.  So even if some pollsters are more aligned with the Dems or GOP, they know which specific pollsters can be trusted and which can't.  So I really don't think there are any "fake polls" being added to the mix.

Go look at https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model  Nate Silver isn't the only election modeler, but he's a big name.  You can see exactly which polls he uses, how much they're weighted, and how they're adjusted.

The Silver Bulletin polling averages are a little fancy. They adjust for whether polls are conducted among registered or likely voters and house effects. They weight more reliable polls more heavily. And they use national polls to make inferences about state polls and vice versa. It requires a few extra CPU cycles — but the reward is a more stable average that doesn't get psyched out by outliers.

The line about outliers, for example, contained a link to a poll which has Harris up 17 points in Wisconsin - not matched by any other poll, so I gather it's just thrown out.

Silver could definitely be off (although his prediction is that it's 50/50, so anything other than a huge win by either candidate won't prove him wrong) - but if he's off it's because of something far more subtler than "fake polls".

Its not just me saying it, its coming from reliable observers.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/10/harris-vs-trump-analyst-tells-panicky-dems-gop-is-creating-fake-polls-desperate-unhinged-trumpian.html

IIRC 270 to win does mark which polls are biased and which aren't, but you have to dig in to see this. Even if they do control to reduce their impact, they still do effect the average more than they should.

The extent to which they're having an impact is debatable but that the gop are using this tactic isn't.

[DGuller]

What's unknowable is the overall bias of the polls.  You can know that poll A leans Dem 3 points more than poll B, but it's hard to know whether that means overall lean of 5 vs 2 or 3 vs 0 or -5 vs -8.

[PJL]

Based on early vote turnout by registrations, I think the polls may be overstating Trump's numbers (or understating Harris), but probably only by 1-2%. I'd be surprised if it's anything more than that. There was a video on Youtube where it stated that pollsters have never overstated one side 3 presidential election cycles in a row since 1972. Plus the fact that they understated the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. So I am hopeful that Harris is doing slightly better than expected. But it will still be a close race regardless.

[Barrister]

Its not just me saying it, its coming from reliable observers.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/10/harris-vs-trump-analyst-tells-panicky-dems-gop-is-creating-fake-polls-desperate-unhinged-trumpian.html

IIRC 270 to win does mark which polls are biased and which aren't, but you have to dig in to see this. Even if they do control to reduce their impact, they still do effect the average more than they should.

The extent to which they're having an impact is debatable but that the gop are using this tactic isn't.

But they're aware of it.  From FiveThirtyEigh:

Are partisan pollsters biasing our averages?
One question that we sometimes get is whether polling averages like 538's are biased toward Trump because of the influx of polls conducted by Republican-aligned firms. Over the past two weeks, 22 of the 113 presidential polls released in the seven main swing states were from a Republican pollster or sponsor, while none were from Democratic organizations.** (The remaining 91 polls were nonpartisan.)

While there is always uncertainty about how accurate state polls are, partisan polls affecting our averages is not one of my bigger concerns. That's because we work hard to subtract potential statistical bias from each poll before putting it into our averages. As you can see in our polling-average methodology, we adjust partisan polls to account for the fact that these polls are typically a bit too good for the sponsoring party.

And even for nonpartisan polls, we apply something called a "house effects" adjustment that accounts for how much more Democratic- or Republican-leaning a pollster is than its peers (whether due to the partisan leanings of its principals or, simply methodological choices that typically produce more liberal or conservative samples). For example, if a pollster's polls have consistently been 2 points better for Trump than the polling average, after controlling for factors such as a poll's population (likely voters versus registered voters or all adults) and mode (e.g., live phone, online panel, text message, etc.), we adjust those polls 2 points toward Harris.

Finally, we give less weight to polls from pollsters without a 538 pollster rating and pollsters that release a bunch of polls in a short period of time. This ensures that pollsters that are "flooding the zone" with polls don't have outsized influence in our averages.

https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-gained-538s-forecast-election-toss/story?id=114907042

[The Minsky Moment]

Right that article mentioned McLaughlin, which is ranked last in the 538 pollster rating.  That poll basically counts for nothing in the analysis.  Rasmussen is also pretty low ranked, and it has a well-known house effect that gets adjusted out.

The race is a statistical dead heat and has been so for months.  It's a toss up.  There may be a significant polling error but there is no way to know which way it will cut. In 16 and 20 it cut for Trump, in 22 for the Democrats.  Cross fingers and hope.

[Legbiter]

That's a tempting theory to accept. We'll soon see.

Yeah probably just cope but we'll know soon enough. It's a coin toss either way.

[Habbaku]

An interesting article in The Globe and Mail, behind a paywall, Interviewing a number of pollsters, who indicate that there's a concern that the reason the race looks so close is because a lot of effort has gone into correcting for past years when Trump support was under reported in the polls. 

The upshot, according to one of the people that was interviewed,  is that all the surprises on election day will be in favour of Harris.  That person said it's very difficult to judge how much the polls might be over corrected but estimated it could range from getting it exactly right to 9 points off in Harris' favour.

That's a tempting theory to accept. We'll soon see.

[Barrister]

I get the understandable desire to look for hope, or the competing desire to look for the ways the opposition side is screwing you.

It's just too close to tell right now.  Nobody can offer any more comfort than that.

The election could just as easily be a comfortable Harris win, as a comfortable Trump win.  There's potential for polling error in either direction.  There's reason to think Dem voters are being under-counted, and reasons to think GOP voters are being under-counter.

As a gross over-simplification: Harris in her "closing argument" is counting on attracting high-propensity white women to vote for her in the closing days.  This is a huge voting block who vote reliably - but that reliability is counted in pollsters estimates so the odds of polling error is small.

Trump on the other hand is counting on young black males to come out and vote for him (this is all the anti-trans stuff).  These are low-propensity voters though - so it's much harder for pollsters to estimate turnout.  Trump doesn't need to get a majority of this group, but a significant enough swing of voters who wouldn't otherwise vote would be huge to win the election - and the odds of polling error is high.

[Valmy]

I get the understandable desire to look for hope, or the competing desire to look for the ways the opposition side is screwing you.

It's just too close to tell right now.  Nobody can offer any more comfort than that.

So just like last election. Just have to hope women show up and vote.

Trump on the other hand is counting on young black males to come out and vote for him (this is all the anti-trans stuff).  These are low-propensity voters though - so it's much harder for pollsters to estimate turnout.  Trump doesn't need to get a majority of this group, but a significant enough swing of voters who wouldn't otherwise vote would be huge to win the election - and the odds of polling error is high.

LOL. Every damn election since like 1980 the Republicans insist this is the time black men finally switch. Every time I am told I am delusional for thinking this is unlikely and every time black men's voting rates remain pretty much the same.

But maybe the well known specific hatred of trans people by black men will do the trick.

[Barrister]

LOL. Every damn election since like 1980 the Republicans insist this is the time black men finally switch. Every time I am told I am delusional for thinking this is unlikely and every time black men's voting rates remain pretty much the same.

As I understand it it has nothing to do with black men switching - it'll still be a majority Dem demographic.

It has more to do with percentage and turnout.  It's such a close election every bit counts - but those two demos seem to be where the parties are putting their bets.

[Josquius]

I've heard it said a big thing democrat campaigners are doing is encouraging women to vote and reminding them it's a secret ballot 

[Barrister]

I've heard it said a big thing democrat campaigners are doing is encouraging women to vote and reminding them it's a secret ballot 

You don't have to go with "I've heard it said".  a Harris-aligned PAC very explicitly sent out an ad to that effect.

It had a couple of women in the voting booth, wink at each other, vote for Harris, then go out to meet their MAGA-adorned husband outside.