Those who are big consumers of "election news" and "polls"--which probably includes many readers of this blog--probably have the sense that Harris is going to win this election. God knows (if S/He existed, that is) I hope the monster child is defeated, and Harris/Walz prevail. But the reality is that this is very, very far from a sure thing. The NYT "poll tracker," whose averages are weighted towards polls with more reliable track records, shows Harris leading Trump by just two points nationally, and shows her leading by similarly small margins, or just tied, in all the key battleground states. 2020 polls badly underestimated Trump's support, despite having been burned in 2016 for the same problem. Are they now accurate? I have no confidence they are, especially if the underlying problem (as many suspect) is that more Trump voters don't respond to polls. In 2020, the gold standard NYT/Siena poll had Biden up by 14 points nationally right before the election; Biden's actual margin of victory was 4.5%. All the good TikTok vibes for Harris are nice and happy, but they don't mean much, since TikTok is not, shall we say, representative of the population at large. I'd be a lot more comfortable if Harris's margin were more like 5-6%, rather than 2%. The fact that it is still close is, by itself, appalling, but telling about the pathological condition of the United States.
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