Analyst Explains Why Polls Could ‘Weighten’ Kamala Harris’ Chances

Political analyst Nate Cohn explains why polls could “undermine” the Vice President Kamala Harris‘ Good luck in Tuesday’s presidential election.

With just three days until Election Day, the race between Democratic presidential nominee Harris and the former President remains close. Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate.

“So Can We Trust the Polls?” Chief political analyst Cohn said in an article published Friday: New York Times Focusing on elections and polls, he wrote about how polls underestimated Trump in 2016, when he first ran for president, and during his 2020 re-election campaign.

He wrote that polls may be more accurate this time because the COVID-19 pandemic (evidence shows skewed poll results) is over and pollsters are making major methodological changes.

But he added that many pollsters are changing the way they conduct their polls in hopes of better representing Trump’s supporters — a group believed to be unreachable by traditional polls. Cohn called this assumption about the difficulty of reaching Trump’s base “most likely true.”

“But if this assumption turns out to be wrong, it is possible that pollsters may have overcompensated,” he wrote.

Cohn later suggested the possibility of Harris being underrated in the polls due to pollsters’ concerns about underestimating Trump for a third time.

“Perhaps the best reason to think the polls might underestimate Kamala Harris this cycle is that so many pollsters are — understandably — so concerned about underestimating Mr. Trump,” he wrote.

news week He reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email for comment Saturday morning.

The Case for Underestimating Trump… Again

Cohn also suggested that pollsters are once again underestimating Trump.

“There is no reason to believe that pollsters can adequately reach less engaged and less educated voters, and every reason to believe that Mr. Trump still has the upper hand among them,” he wrote.

But on the other hand, he added: “If the polls show Mr. Trump doing better among independent voters, that could mean they are finally reaching the voters who have helped Mr. Trump all along.”

What Do the Surveys Show?

Poll aggregator 538 shows Harris leading Trump by just over 1 point (48 to 46.8 percent) as of Saturday morning. Nate SilverHarris, the leading poll analyst who founded 538 but is no longer affiliated with it, also had a slight lead on the national stage Friday afternoon (48.5 to 47.4 percent).

However, national polls project only the popular vote due to America’s Electoral College system, which rewards a candidate with 270 or more delegate votes for the presidency, distributed to states by the number of senators and representatives rather than their overall membership. Votes were cast across the country. At the same time, national polls can help predict trends in state polls.

How Are Candidates Faring in the Seven Swing States?

Trump and Harris are going through much the same thing in Pennsylvania. According to 538’s figures on Saturday, the former president has 47.9 percent of voter support, while Harris has 47.7 percent. Trump leads Silver by a slightly larger margin in Friday’s poll averages (48.4 to 47.8 percent).

The two are also close in Nevada, where the former president has a narrow lead. In an average of 538 polls on Saturday, Trump has 47.7 percent support, compared to Harris’ 47.3 percent. As of Friday, Silver leads Trump with 48.3 percent and Harris with 47.7 percent in Nevada.

At the same time, there is a head-to-head competition between the two in Wisconsin and Michigan.

According to Saturday’s figures from 538, Harris leads Trump in Wisconsin by 0.8 points (48.2 to 47.4 percent). Silver’s numbers on Friday show Harris by the same margin but by different percentages (48.6 to 47.8 percent).

Harris has a very small lead over Trump in Michigan. On Saturday, 538 people said they supported the vice president, 48 percent to Trump’s 47 percent. Silver also noted that as of Friday, Harris was slightly ahead of Trump (48.4 percent to 47.2 percent).

Trump is doing slightly better than Harris in North Carolina; Saturday’s 538 numbers show Trump at 48.5 percent and Harris at 47.1 percent. Trump leads Harris in North Carolina by 1.2 points (48.7 to 47.5 percent), according to Silver’s numbers Friday.

The former president’s lead over Harris is growing in Georgia and Arizona.

538 said in a statement on Saturday that Trump was leading Harris by 48.6 to 47.1 percent in Georgia. As of Friday, Silver leads Trump by slightly more than the vice president (49.1 percent to 47.4 percent).

According to Saturday’s figures from 538, Trump leads Harris in Arizona by 2.1 points (48.8 percent to 46.7 percent). Silver’s numbers, meanwhile, show the former president leading Harris by 2.2 points (49 to 46.8 percent) as of Friday.