Tomorrow We Will Find Out Who We Really Are

Over the weekend, legendary pollster Ann Selzer released her final Iowa poll. It had Harris up 3 in a state Trump won by 8 in 2020. I was recently complaining that the lack of outlier polls was unnerving me, and here we have one. Less-noticed was a poll from Fort Hays State U called the Kansas Speaks poll. It performed very well in 2020 and sort of well in 2016. In that poll, Trump was up five in a state he carried by 14% in 2020, a similar shift to the one Selzer found in Iowa.

Two things are possible. These are apparent outliers but actually accurate, or they’re outliers because they’re wrong. I am emotionally prepared for a bad result this year, and I would say I still expect it. (My confidence in my country-people is not high.) But there’s at least a chance Harris wins comfortably.

How would that happen? Both polls offer some clues. Women are probably the biggest factor. In Iowa, they favor Harris by 20 points, more than men favor Trump (14 points). They also vote in greater numbers, a dynamic that might be exaggerated because of Dobbs and the overt hostility of the Trump ticket to women. Young voters (defined here as under 35) barely favor Harris—but older voters (55+) favor her by 13 points. That’s also true in the KS poll. The elder vote is something pollsters have noticed, but not one people much cover. As an old myself, I can tell you that protecting Social Security is a bigass deal to our cohort, and Harris seems like a far safer bet.

This could signal a polling error again—but this time one favoring the Democrat. If the polls are failing to register a huge surge toward Harris akin to the one Selzer predicts, all those toss up states (every single battleground state is within 2%) are probably Harris States, and others formerly not considered battleground states—like Iowa—could be in play.

Okay, so it’s two polls—let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Except that it actually *makes sense.* Harris has run as close to a flawless campaign as I’ve ever seen. She’s outraised Trump, out-advertised him, and has run a robust ground game. She has committed no gaffes of note, run on a policy-focused, crossover voter-friendly campaign, focused on the right states, campaigned tirelessly, and mustered an amazing phalanx of surrogates from Beyoncé to Liz Cheney.

Trump, on the other hand, has run the weirdest, nastiest, and shambling campaigns I’ve ever seen. Trump has used his dwindling resources to focus on trans issues—secondary even to GOP voters—has no ground game, and has had a series of events with terrible optics. His personal appearance, behavior, and rhetoric – even as measured against the Trump baseline – has been viscerally alarming in the way Biden’s was over the summer.

Despite this, nothing has seemed to move the polls *at all.* Any given intervention may move the needle only a bit, but taken together, they are supposed to help a candidate win. If those polls are right, this would be an astounding development, refuting what politicians and political scientists understood about winning elections. (With Trump, I absolutely do not rule it out; I am merely signposting how unusual it would be.)

But wait, there’s more! Elections ride on other, more important factors like candidate quality and structural factors—and here again Harris, the more well-liked candidate—should be doing much better. Consider:

• Trump’s cognitive decline,

• His makeup and appearance

• JD Vance’s unpopularity

• Trump’s extreme rhetoric,

• The campaign’s racism/sexism,

• His constant, weird lies (“They’re eating dogs, they’re eating cats!”)

• Trump’s footsie with autocrats

• Dobbs/abortion

• Project 2025

• Felony conviction for porn star payoffs

• Civil conviction for rape

• 34 indictments

• January 6th

• Cheap gas prices ($3.10)

• Inflation at 2.1%

• Unemployment 4.1%

• Record stock prices

• Low and falling crime rate

Some of those factors, one could argue, are baked in the cake—but others have developed in the past couple months. Everything except the polls suggest a race that should be swinging solidly to Harris. It’s a very confusing election, and it seems like it’s going to remain that way through Election Day at a minimum. 

Over the next two days, be wary of the chatter you see online and even in the news. There’s always a fog-of-war stage to an election, in which rumors, projection, and unrepresentative anecdotes start flying. People on both sides will be alternating overconfident and panicked, and solid, reliable info will be scarce. The truth is, we don’t know what will happen—the signals are just too mixed. 

One thing I can confidently assert is this: in 2024 Americans are holding up a mirror to themselves. Kamala Harris is promising a normal administration, while Trump is running the autocrat’s playbook. We all understand what each candidate represents. When America decides, they will do so with eyes wide open. This week, we will find out who we really are. 

🤞