Scrutable

Four years ago, the race in Iowa was looking extremely tight. FiveThirtyEight’s polling average actually had Joe Biden practically tied with Trump in the Hawkeye State. At the time, this hardly seemed unusual; polls consistently said Biden was poised to make a big recovery with the Midwestern working class whites who had abandoned Hillary Clinton, and Iowa was the epicenter of that shift. The Selzer poll from September had found both candidates tied, 47–47, reinforcing this belief.

Then, Selzer dropped a bomb in the final week, with a survey that showed Trump ahead 48–41. This was a finding that suggested Trump was actually well-positioned to replicate his 2016 performance in Iowa, with big implications for the rest of the Midwest. It was Trump’s best poll in months, and arguably his best one of the entire year. And at the end of the day, Selzer turned out to be right, just as she was in the 2008 Democratic caucuses, in the 2014 Senate election, and the 2016 election — her outlier polls, once again, continued to consistently catch something that no other pollster was seeing.

This was, however, a huge deviation from basically every other poll of the cycle, and came with a number of caveats. Selzer is one of the most respected pollsters in the country, but no pollster is free from the laws of the universe that govern statistics. Sampling error is always a possibility, and her polls, even with their phenomenal track record, are not infrequently off by a point or two. And, of course, it was just one poll — the data in aggregate said something different.

All of these caveats apply to the astonishing poll that Selzer released this evening, where Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump, 47–44, in Iowa. It is inarguably one of the best results for Harris of the cycle. Although Iowa polling has been sparse (neither candidate is treating it as a swing state, given Trump’s 8-point margin there in 2020), there is scant evidence anywhere of the surge in support Harris would need to flip Iowa.

[…]

If this poll is anywhere near correct, the implications are vast. It is difficult to imagine a universe in which Kamala Harris achieves the level of white support necessary to be competitive in Iowa, but does not win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska’s second congressional district – and with it, the election.

While no other poll has shown quite this monumental of a shift, if you squint, there are perhaps hints of something similar happening in polls of similar states. Harris has polled exceptionally well in Nebraska’s second congressional district, and some polls of Nebraska statewide show a shift toward her as well. There was also a recent poll of Kansas that only had Trump up 48-43, a seeming outlier, but one perhaps worth taking a second look at in the wake of this poll.

Does this poll imply a Harris landslide? That’s one interpretation we’re skeptical of — even setting aside the outlier nature of this poll, it is worth noting that even a perfectly accurate Iowa poll cannot say much about states like Georgia or Arizona, where the whites vote differently from the Midwest. Barack Obama, for example, won Iowa easily en route to losing both of those states, and the idea of Harris possibly replicating something closer to the Obama coalition seems far-fetched. (But, then again, so does the idea of Harris being competitive in Iowa at all).

We have criticized pollster “herding,” a dynamic in which polls crowd around the expected result, instead of being willing to publish outliers or other surprising results. One thing is clear: Ann Selzer is not herding. It is possible that this becomes the first Selzer poll to seriously miss, through no fault of its own — again, sampling error can be unavoidable. On the other hand, perhaps Selzer is once again correct, and pollsters have been seriously underestimating Harris, an outcome that would remind people, at the very least, that polling error is unpredictable.

In three days, we will have our answer.

lpm wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2024 1:04 am Iowa? Iowa!

It's not a poll about 6 EVs, it's a poll about women.

lpm wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2024 12:50 pm The Iowa poll is unexciting when dug into.

Sample size only 800 but it pretends to give useful info on "white women over 65" and the like, then everyone is stretching to apply these sub-sub-categories to other mid west states.

lpm wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2024 12:50 pm The Iowa poll is unexciting when dug into.

Sample size only 800 but it pretends to give useful info on "white women over 65" and the like, then everyone is stretching to apply these sub-sub-categories to other mid west states.

Both candidates have multiple pathways available to capture the 270 Electoral College votes required to claim victory, assuming that polls are not dramatically underestimating the support for one or the other. In such a close race, even a small systemic polling error could tip the contest decisively in either direction.

But there are signs that late deciders are breaking for Ms. Harris: Among the 8 percent of voters who said they had only recently decided on their vote, she wins the group by 55 percent to 44 percent. (With Election Day nearing, 11 percent of voters remained undecided or persuadable, down from 16 percent about a month ago.)

The polling comes as more than 70 million Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

Roughly 40 percent of those surveyed by the Times/Siena poll across the seven states said they had voted. Ms. Harris wins those voters by a margin of eight percentage points, the polls found. Mr. Trump has an edge among voters who say they are highly likely to vote but have not yet cast a ballot.

[...]

Rates of early voting are particularly high in North Carolina, where more than half the voters said they had already cast a ballot. Ms. Harris wins early voters in the state by 8 percentage points, perhaps contributing to her three-percentage-point edge in the survey of the state. Despite recent devastation there from Hurricane Helene, more than nine out of 10 North Carolina voters said that the storm and its aftermath have had no impact at all on their ability to vote.

[...]

The only state where the poll found Mr. Trump winning with people who said they had already voted was Arizona. Forty-six percent of voters there said they had already voted, and Mr. Trump wins that group, 50 percent to 46 percent.

The polls also reveal a shift in the issues being prioritized by voters in the final stretch of the race. The economy still remains their top concern, but in states like Wisconsin, where Ms. Harris has held a consistent edge, abortion now nearly matches the economy as voters’ most important issue. And in Arizona, where Mr. Trump leads, immigration also continues to rise as a crucial issue driving voters’ choices.

[...]

The survey shows that Mr. Trump has continued to hold on to the core of the coalition that supported him in his past two presidential bids — white voters who did not attend college, and men — while expanding his support among younger, nonwhite and newer voters. He is exceeding his 2020 vote share in Arizona and Michigan, both states he did not win four years ago.

Ms. Harris is underperforming relative to President Biden’s performance in 2020 with younger voters, Black voters, particularly Black women, and Latino voters. But she has improved on his numbers with these groups since he dropped out of the race in July.

The gender gap remains wide across all seven states, with Ms. Harris the favorite of women and Mr. Trump preferred by men. For women and younger voters, abortion now surpasses the economy as the most important issue driving votes.

Woodchopper wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 10:21 am Final results from NYT Siena College

NYT Siena.jpg

Woodchopper wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 10:21 am The picture should be clearer by Wednesday morning, but I expect that counting in some close states will go on for a while.

lpm wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 11:42 am

Woodchopper wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 10:21 am The picture should be clearer by Wednesday morning, but I expect that counting in some close states will go on for a while.

It will be unlikely to need this long.

2016 was very close, but we knew Trump had won by about 3 or 4 a.m. UK time.

2020 was even closer, but it did look OK by 3 or 4 a.m.

US projections come fast, thanks to the piecemeal reporting and the correlations between districts. Early Virginia results - though not a swing state - will show the direction North Carolina and Georgia are heading. Ohio, IA, PA, MI and WI will likely show similar swings to each other, though different to the VA, NC, GA zone. Then the AZ and NV zone comes surprisingly early, they must close the polling booths at 4 pm or something ridiculous. None of this voting till 10 pm for Americans.

bjn wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 12:32 pm Don't forget the threat of violence as well. He did it before, he'll do it again.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 2:43 pm 538's model then:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... id=rrpromo

Modal result is approx. Trump 312-226 Harris. Median is around Trump 277-261 Harris. Mean is Trump 276-262 Harris.

But what do models know? Harris's ceiling is higher than Trump's, and that Iowa poll is a seductive one.

lpm wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 3:55 pm Here's when previous elections were known/called.

2020 following Saturday
2016 2:45 a.m. ET
2012 11:12 p.m.
2008 9:18 p.m. (Ohio called for Obama, formal network call at 11 p.m. on closing of California polls)
2004 following Weds 2 p.m. (Ohio again)
2000 never
1996 9 p.m. (WI and MI)
1992 9 p.m.
1988 9 p.m.

Clearly it could be another all nighter. But more normal to have an outcome by 11 p.m., with a concession speech before midnight.