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Stuart Rothenberg is one of those old school election watcher/analyst types, from the pre-poll aggregator, pre-538 era. Rothenberg, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato etc. His new column out from him in Roll Call caught my eye. The gist is simple enough. While he’s not predicting this outcome, Rothenberg says we shouldn’t be surprised if the 2024 presidential actually turns out not to be that close, despite the fact that a photo finish is the one thing everyone on every side of the race seems to agree on. He points to new high quality polls out of Pennsylvania and Iowa which suggest the race may not be quite as close as we all universally assume. And Rothenberg is not the type you’d generally expect to predict or hint at something like this. As Rothenberg puts it, after detailing this universal consensus: “[I]f you are something of a gambler and everyone you know believes the 2024 presidential contest is and will remain extremely close, you probably should put a few dollars on the possibility that November will produce a clear and convincing win for Harris.”
As you can see, even Rothenberg is only willing to point to this possibility in an oblique sort of way. There’s a kind of extreme taboo among Democrats, for some pretty good reasons, around discussing the upside possibilities in the inherent unknowns of a presidential race, especially this one. But since I’m discussing this with TPM readers I am confident I can note the possibilities, these various data markers, without you thinking, well, in that case I don’t need to worry about voting myself and I’m going to bag on that phone banking I was planning on doing each week through November. So don’t worry. I’m not going to offend the gods. We’ll keep this just between us.
Yesterday a family member asked me: how accurate are polls really? I told him that within broad parameters they are highly accurate. The challenge is that when you get into close margins — say, 3 or 4 percentage points — you’re down to margins where the results rely a lot on assumptions pollsters have to make about turnout and the shape of the overall electorate. And those assumptions, while educated assumptions, can be wrong. Then we have to add in the fact that polls have twice underestimated Trump. I’ve explained in other posts why I think there are good reasons to doubt that will happen again, or rather that it’s not more likely than the polls underestimating Harris. But it did happen twice. It’s hard to forget that. And it’s in part because of that that everyone from pollsters to nervous political observers are systematically discounting a number of signs that the Harris campaign may be in a stronger position than people realize.
As we’ve discussed in other posts over the last six weeks and even going back to Biden’s candidacy there are many reasons to think Democrats have a significant enthusiasm and turnout edge over Republicans in this cycle. Harris also continues to reconsolidate the traditional Democratic constituencies that made up Biden’s 2020 coalition. Factors like this suggest either polls or at least conventional wisdom may be underestimating Harris’ strength. Then there are other factors Rothenberg points to that are about the trajectory of the race going forward. Harris is a dynamic campaigner. She trounced Trump in the first and perhaps only debate between the two. She’s likely to have a final advantage in the last two months of the campaign. There’s the simple reality that voters like her much more than Trump — a general prism through which voters will see the various unpredictable events of the final 50 days of the campaign. It’s only a small numerical difference since we discussed this last time, but yesterday Harris finally moved into net positive favorability — albeit by the tiniest of margins — for the first time since mid-2021.
There is also the simple trendline of the poll aggregates themselves. As I write this post, Harris seems to be again building up her national lead, probably a bump of some sort from the debate and subsequent press coverage about it. There was a lot of nervousness just before the debate when Harris’ lead seemed to be slipping. But we’re now almost two months into Harris’ candidacy. And the big picture is one of stability. Harris almost instantly erased Biden’s deficit. Her margin then increased to 3 or 4 points nationally. And it’s mostly stayed there. A touch of undulation here and there, but not much.
On the other side of the ledger, or balancing out these data points, we see the recurring pattern of interpreting Trump’s every bib and bob, every rake stomp, not as a self-inflicted wound but as uncanny smarts which more conventional thinkers aren’t able to fathom. We’ve spent the last week watching JD’s and Trump’s claims about Fido and Felix barbecues fall apart. The Trump campaign responds that yes their lies are falling apart and offending normal people. But every day the campaign is about immigration is a win for them, they argue. And they might be right. But maybe not. Maybe it’s a campaign that’s losing, trying to find an angle but floundering again and again.
My point here isn’t that we should be confident of a Harris victory or that a decisive win, which Rothenberg believes is possible, is the likely outcome. It’s a bit different than that. It’s that there are a number of data points which are consistent with those outcomes which for a variety of reasons — some good, others less so — we’re deciding not to look at. It is probably best not to look at them too closely. Because Trump winning is a very real possibility and the consequences of such a catastrophe are profound. It’s good to feel like you’re running as the underdog because it makes you hungry and smart rather than trying, defensively, to sit on a lead. As long as it doesn’t get to the point of demoralization, it’s good to assume you’re behind because you might be. But we should retain in the back of our minds that there are real reasons to think it won’t actually be that close.