Reading very much into the polls is always a dubious endeavor at best, but let's take a look at this one and a quick jaunt down memory lane to examine some polling history
Ah, the age old story: "the polls" predict a LANDSLIDE VICTORY for Candidate A, and Candidate B carries the day by five points come election day. I've grown up being taught that in politics "trusting the polls" is never a good idea, but despite that I couldn't help myself in predicting a Red Wave in 2022 when seeing what the polls were predicting. Let's compare some polls and outcomes from that year (note: the polls for these three examples below were found on Wikipedia which, while not usually a reliable source of information, does accurately report almost all major polls in large political races complete with citations. You can find those polls and their original source by searching the individual Wikipedia pages for these three races cited as examples below):
As of November 6, 2022, The Economist rated Nevada's US Senate seat as Lean Republican, which would be a flip of the seat. The usually reliable Trafalgar Group had Republican Adam Laxalt, a former NV Attorney General, taking down Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez-Masto 50%-45%. Even the Democrat Data for Progress had Cortez-Masto trailing Laxalt by two points, 49%-47%. As it turned out, come election day - or the weeks following it thanks largely to provisions in Nevada's voting laws that allowed mail-in ballots to be submitted until November 12, Cortez-Masto squeaked out a win 48.81%-48.04%, a tiny difference of about only 8,000 votes of over 1,000,000 cast.
Larry Sabato's group, Sabato's Crystal Ball, another usually-more-reliable source, rated the US Senate race in Pennsylvania between Mehmet Oz, an establishment celebrity TV doctor, against the then-stroke-battling John Fetterman - the state's former Lieutenant Governor, as Lean Republican, also a flip. The polls varied widely in their predictions as Election Day approached, with Targoz Market Research giving Oz a five-point advantage (51-46) to Marist College giving Fetterman a six-point lead (51-45) with likely voters. However, the general consensus was that the race would be tight but Oz might squeeze out a victory on election night. Instead, Oz hugely underperformed and lost to a man who at the time had a difficult time putting one coherent sentence together by a whopping 4.92%, or approximately 270,000 votes.
Lastly, as one more example (2022 was an excellent year for Republicans under-performing their poll numbers, thus demonstrating the unreliable nature of said polls), in North Carolina, a reliably red state with an obnoxious habit of choosing Democrats for governor but nothing else, Ted Budd, a U.S. Representative of three terms should have cruised to an easy victory over Democrat Cheri Beasley, with Trafalgar and Data for Progress showing six-point wins (both 51-45) and East Carolina University showing him with a five-point win (52-47). Instead, Budd did win the race but also underperformed (as all Republicans did nationally with the exception of Ron DeSantis-led Florida), defeating Beasley only by 3.23 points, 50.50% - 47.27%.
All this to say, polls are largely unhelpful when it comes to predicting the outcome of tight races, especially tight races in a big statewide or national election where even a relatively large sample size of 1,500 self-described likely voters may be inaccurate. Now, when you factor in that this NBC poll which this article is based around is being taken approximately ten months from the next election, it really doesn't tell us anything close to reliable about what the final percentages will be on election night. However, that doesn't mean it can't show us anything at all. Here is the report from Steve Kornacki of NBC News:
Let's key in on a couple specific things here. First of all, just looking at the main numbers, Trump leads Biden 47-42%. Now I don't believe that there's really 11% of voters, or roughly 18 million voters based on the most recent data I found, that are undecided or voting for a third-party candidate this election, so even that must be taken with a grain of salt (yes, I know Robert F Kennedy Jr could take some votes from both candidates, but the chances of him getting more than at a maximum 5-7% are little to none). But the important thing here is the trajectory of the poll. In June of last year Trump trailed Biden in this very poll by 4 points; in September, they tied; in November of 2023, Trump took his first-ever lead in that poll. And now Trump leads by five, a nine-point swing in just eight months. That trajectory is exactly the one Trump needs to be on, so long as he doesn't hit a ceiling and begin falling again before Election Day.
Even more interesting than the main poll results, which is the only part of the poll that you'll see in news headlines, are the demographic breakdowns. Now, stay with me here, this is actually interesting. Two of the groups Democrats historically heavily rely on are young voters and Blacks. This poll finds Biden and Trump tied with young voters ages 18-34 at 42%-42%. With Blacks, Biden holds a commanding lead of 75%-16% (a 59-point lead), but if the President can't do better than 75% of Black voters, that spells disaster for the Democrats all down the ballot in November. It is important to note that this is far from the first time that the polls have shown Black voters finally swinging at least noticeably toward Republicans. In the past, however, when it came to actually casting their votes Black voters ended up voting for Republicans in the single digits per usual. BUT, in 2020 Trump did end up receiving 12% of the Black vote to Biden's 87%. Still a huge win in that demographic for Democrats, but not as good as they've seen historically when they've been up around 95%. While it's highly unlikely Biden will come in much lower with Blacks in 2024, if Trump can hold Biden to 80-82% while garnering 16 or 17 percent of his own, that would spell big trouble for liberals in 2024.
The White vote is polled right about as expected, 54-37 Trump, but three other huge categories also look promising for the former Commander-in-Chief: young voters, independents, and Hispanics. Young voters historically go for Democrats. According to NBC exit poll data, voters 18-24 went for Biden at a crazy 65% in 2020. The NBC poll referenced in this article shows the two candidates tied at 42% in the 2024 rematch with voters aged 18-34. Biden must improve those number to increase his odds at re-election. Trump must hold firm there and obviously would like to improve as well. Meanwhile, in perhaps the second-most surprising revelation in the poll, independents go for Trump by an incredible 19 points, with Biden at a miserable 29% among that key demographic. Per an Axios article from April 2023 which reported on a Gallup poll, a record 49% of Americans now identify as "politically independent". With number like those, Biden is going to have to seriously turn the tide and improve upon the current 29% he's polling at with that group to have any chance in the general election.
Lastly, we've heard for a few years now how Hispanics are finally turning and voting Red, and we're seeing a Hispanic swing for Republicans. So far that hasn't come to fruition, but could it this year? This same NBC poll we've been referencing shows Trump barely ahead of Biden at 42% to Biden's 41%. That's basically a tie when you factor in margin of error, but the fact that it's anywhere near that close is an excellent sign for President Trump. He will have to perform well with these key demographics and Biden will likely simultaneously have to underperform for Trump to carry the day come Election Night.
Editor's Note: The main NBC poll referenced in this article can be found at this link:
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