The State of Our Union's Elections (Part 3)

Diving Into the Polling Data (And the Worldwide Trends)

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash. He continues to look like a better choice than Trump.

Note: I will try to mostly put the paid subscriptions generated from this post (and the others in the series) towards Democrats across the country and towards Democratic/progressive organizations like Robert Reich’s Inequality Media Civic Action, the Progressive Turnout Project, and the great Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles.

However, if you would prefer your subscription dollars to fund nonpartisan causes, please reach out to me and I can try to work out an accommodation.

Note: Also, so much thanks to my brother for helping me out with all the data points. He truly is a political encyclopedia.

Much has been said and will be said about the latest Des Moines Register poll. Harris ahead by 3 points? Over Trump? In the gold standard of Iowa polling? Given the Des Moines Register’s 3.4% margin of error, that at best means that Trump is leading by 0.4% in a state he won by 8% in 2020. That is bare minimum a 7.6% swing. Even if for now. And in just one poll.

Still, is that the real story behind Iowa polling today? Once again, the TV pundits—and the Nate Silvers and the Harry Entens of the world—miss a rather critical piece of the picture. Just a little earlier in the month, Emerson College, a national polling outlet that is a mainstay of the battleground polling averages, had Trump up in Iowa by 9. In fact, 538 still has not bothered to display a visual of the polling average in Iowa.

At this point, you may be tempted to just throw your hands up in the air and declare, who knows which one is right? I understand. Polls are confusing. Like I said in my last post, the polling desert is real. In the battlegrounds, red wave polls have largely filled the void. In 2024, they have done so with gusto. Per the Hopium Chronicle’s Simon Rosenberg, since late August we have seen 32 right-affiliated organizations “[release] over 125 polls into the averages” (emphasis mine). They are clearly in it to win the narrative war of this election.

Which leaves us with the national polls. But could they too be getting this election wrong?