I am not looking forward to this at all, it's been painful over the last few months, we're finally getting to the official election day, but it could be days or weeks later before we have the final result, then the fear of what will come next, Trump winning is certainly the scariest outcome, but the trouble he will stir up if he doesn't is also scary, what a fucking mess.
It's been a real rollercoaster ride, before Biden stood down I was resigned to the idea that Trump was going to win, all hope was drained from me, then Harris looked like a real game changer, and I started to think there was some hope, but the narrowing of the polls recently, despite all the fuckwitty from Trump, has left me in despair.
However, there seems to be various little things going on, that together, could be really positive. Sky News reporters across the pond are saying there's growing evidence of higher than normal turn-out amongst women and young voters in early voting, which sounds positive.
And, there's a couple of other things in the news today that has caught my eye this morning, firstly this from NBC on how the pollsters are using tools that could be over compensating for problems in the 2016 and 2020 polls. TBF it's full of 'ifs' and 'buts', however when read in conjunction with what Sky is reporting, it could prove interesting.
Analysis: Even in a close election, random chance means polls should be showing a broader range of results. That raises the question of whether we’re in for another polling surprise.
www.nbcnews.com
But the fact that so many polls are reporting the exact same margins and results raises a troubling possibility: that some pollsters are making adjustments in such similar ways that those choices are causing the results to bunch together, creating a potential illusion of certainty — or that some pollsters are even looking to others’ results to guide their own (i.e., “herding”). If so, the artificial similarity of polls may be creating a false impression that may not play out on Election Day. We could well be in for a very close election. But there’s also a significant chance one candidate or the other could sweep every swing state and win the presidency somewhat comfortably, at least compared to the evenly balanced picture in the polls.
Another more likely possibility is that some of the tools pollsters are using in 2024 to address the polling problems of 2020, such as weighting by partisanship, past vote or other factors, may be flattening out the differences and reducing the variation in reported poll results. The effect of such decisions is subtle, but important, because it means that the similarity of polls is being driven by the decisions of pollsters rather than voters.
Worth reading the full article.
Then there's this shock poll in Iowa, OK it's only one single poll, but apparently it's from Selzer who are "a widely respected polling organisation with a good record in Iowa."
A poll in Iowa that has unexpectedly put Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in what was previously expected to be a safe state for the Republicans has sent shockwaves through America’s poll-watchers.
The Selzer poll carried out for the Des Moines Register newspaper showed Harris ahead of her Republican rival by three points.
Midwestern Iowa is not one of the seven battleground states of the 2024 election, which have consisted of the Rust belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and the Sun belt states of Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.
While political experts and pollsters are very wary of putting too much store in any one single poll, Selzer is a widely respected polling organisation with a good record in Iowa. If Harris were even competitive in Iowa – which Trump won in both 2016 and 2020 – it could radically reshape the race.
The Selzer poll has Harris over Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters. A September poll showed Trump with a four-point lead over Harris and a June survey showed him with an 18-point lead over then-candidate Joe Biden.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” pollster J Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co, told the Register. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
The poll showed that women are driving the late shift toward Harris in the state. If true and borne out more widely, that would also be significant as the Harris campaign has focused on turning out women amid a broad gender gap with Republican-trending male voters. Harris and her campaign have focused on the overturning of federal abortion rights by the conservative-dominated US supreme court.
The reaction among pundits and pollsters was largely one of shock and surprise, though it was also pointed out that a rival polling group still had Trump leading in Iowa.
“This is a stunning poll. But Ann Seltzer [sic] has as stellar a record as any pollster of forecasting election outcomes in her state. Women are powering this surge. Portents for the country?” said David Axelrod, a former top aide to Barack Obama.
So, little flickers of hope!
In shocking result that could reshape the race, ex-president falls three points behind in a state he won in 2016 and 2020
www.theguardian.com
