All of us — at least those who have been paying attention for the last eight years — remember the 2016 presidential election polling debacle. Many of us went to sleep that night depressed at the horrendous prospect of Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I, Dowager-Empress of Chappaqua, occupying the Oval Office for four years. The polling, after all, had Her Imperial Highness winning by a wide margin — but we awoke the next morning to a very different world.
In 2020, the polls were similarly wrong. Most of the battleground state polls that year showed Joe Biden holding significant leads, when the final count came in with Biden winning by a narrow margin.
Could 2024’s polling be hiding a similar miscalculation? Could there be a Trump surge that the pollsters aren’t catching?
The race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris might not be as tight as the polls indicate.
The New York Times and RealClearPolitics averages of national polling show the two presidential candidates in a dead heat. In the latest survey from the Wall Street Journal, they appear to be running neck-to-neck.
But do polls reflect the true state of the race? Here are three reasons why polling now should be taken with a grain of salt.
There are several reasons that polling can miss major trends and surges, but there’s one thing that is always a difficult-to-predict factor in presidential elections, and that’s new voters. These may be young people voting for the first time, or they may be formerly disinterested people who are motivated by current events — like, say, runaway inflation, or a lack of affordable housing — or waves of unchecked illegal immigration.
To call 2024 an election like none before it is to engage in the grossest of understatements.
With as many twists and turns as the 2024 election cycle has seen, it’s impossible for pollsters to predict what could change in the presidential race in the next 52 days. Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump and subsequent campaign exit, Harris’s swift ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s alliance with Trump are just a few matters pollsters didn’t factor into their predictions just a few short months ago.
In other words, polls are being used to predict the outcome — and as the old saying goes, predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.
See Related: NEW POLL: Kamala Harris Won the Debate—yet It’s Trump Who Gained a Point in Voter Support
Prepare for Meltdowns: CBS Report, Post-Debate Poll Show Good News for Trump in Michigan
Post-Debate Poll Explains Harris’ Big Problem, Why Trump Is Now Leading in Michigan
Nobody in the Republican Party, the Trump/Vance campaign, or any conservative/libertarian voters should be mollified by the possibility of any invisible Trump surge. This is still going to be a close election (inexplicably, maybe, but that’s the case,) and not only must the Trump/Vance campaign and the candidates fight to the finish, but we must all not only vote but make sure all of our friends and neighbors who think as we do, get out and vote as well.
We can’t afford complacency. A hidden surge, hopeful as it may be and fortunate if it materializes, can’t be relied on to save us. Any such silent surge will be just that — silent — and we must comport ourselves as though no such surge will ever happen. Vote early if you can. Bank your vote. Vote in person if you wish — but at all costs, at all hazards, vote, because the republic cannot afford a Kamala Harris presidency.
