True story: half the country doesn't even know she's in yet.
Had to tell 3 peeps at dinner yesterday what's up.
I'm not alone.
post
I'd like to remind everyone that 8 years ago, the polls showed Hillary was going to trounce Trump pretty handedly. There was tons of discussion after the election about how the polls could be so wrong.
I think Fivethityeight's explanation went something like...
If a candidate is only polling 40% to their opponents's 60%, and you were to run the election 10 times with a different sampling of voters each time, it doesn't mean that the candidate will lose by 60% every time. It means they're going to win four times out of ten.
Don't let polls lull you into either complacency or despair. The only thing polls are really good for is giving pundits something to talk about in the 24 hour news cycle. Polls don't decide the election. Only actual votes on actual ballots that are actually submitted in time decide the election.
And this messaging is a large part of what led to low democrat turnout when Hillary was running for office. Her early campaign had basically been “lol don’t worry about this, he’s an idiot who doesn’t gave a chance of winning.” It wasn’t until about a month before the actual election that someone in her campaign team realized this would lull voters into a false sense of security. Suddenly, their entire tone changed from “he has no chance of winning” to “oh for fucks sake please go vote”. But it was too little, too late. Democrat voters stayed home, and handed the win to Trump.
Sounds like you're thinking of 538's election needle, not polling data. If a candidate has 60% of the votes in a poll, assuming the poll is accurate, they win 100% of the time. The standard deviation on a population this big is practically 0
538 put Trump's 2016 chances at about 75%. That means Trump needed to flip two coins and have them both come up heads. It wasn't a ridiculous outside chance at all.
People have also let Comey and his last minute letter off the hook. Polls were really close, but favored Hillary. That letter came too late for any poll to absorb the new information, but it very likely tipped the scales. There were a lot of things that went wrong in that election--it never should have been so close in the first place--but that very likely shifted the outcome.
Very very true, I put time and money into Bernie Sanders second bid, the polling made it look like he was going to win the primary in a devistating landslide. It never materialized, his base, if they ever were serious weren't serious enough to actually make it to a polling place on the day of. Very disappointing. Never think the polling will match the voting, they can be very different animals.
Michigan fucking loves her. Damn.
also, Trump did nothing for them
What state could claim he did something for them? That this once again is a close race constantly boggled my mind.
state of dispair
Ask Wisconsin how that Foxconn contract he helped secure for them turned out.
(For those not familiar, and disinclined to investigate further, the answer is "Not great.")
Wisconsin here. I'm really surprised that vocal trumpers in this state aren't strung by their balls by fellow citizens.
But then again people still vote for Ron Johnson and Robin Vos
Also, Trump's a rapist, convicted felon, and just plain weird.
Get your shit together PA. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is game over.
Kamala Harris is going to wipe the floor with Trump.
Those margins are all uncomfortably close - "wipes out" is needlessly bombastic.
I think that "wipes out" here is referring to the lead that Trump had in the polls previously. All the states went from a clear lead for Trump over Biden, to basically even, with one exception showing a clear lead.
I think that it suggests a competitive race, rather than one side coasting to victory. It is hard to draw concrete conclusions still, but the clear lead is definitely gone
I think it was John Stewart said we're happy to have gone from Trump lead to statistical tie.
I'm not sure the country is ready for a gay VP, but my god Pete would destroy JD in the debate.
This is awesome, the momentum looks like it’s going to keep up! The +11 point lead in MI is nothing to doubt, let’s go President Harris!
I hope her campaign keeps reminding voters everywhere of project 2025, and exactly how it’s going to negatively impact their lives.
How is drumpf even a candidate at this point?
Overall the polls have been encouraging for her, but that MI one look really wrong. 538 has her about down a point on average.
538 shows the same result, Kamala +11, for the specific Morning Consult poll cited in the chart.
But you are correct that this poll is an outlier compared to other polls, and we probably need more data and for the race to settle a bit before we have a sense of the actual margin.
I'm hesitant to put too much stock in any numbers a single week into her candidacy. It also bears repeating that no poll matters unless people vote.

top 50 comments