Political Polls & Actual Polls – The Trends Are In – Top 3 Takeaways – October 24th, 2024
- The trend is in. Early voting is underway in just about every state, along with vote by mail balloting that’s been taking place for weeks. The trend is in... everywhere. Democrats are more inclined to vote by mail while Republicans have been eagerly lining up at the polls. There are now only seven states, and no swing states among them, in which we lack partisan tracking of votes that’ve been cast. And the news for Republicans continues to get better by the day. Heading into Election Day 2020, Democrats had outvoted Republicans nationally by 14.3%. As of Tuesday, the Democrat turnout advantage stood at 10 points. By Wednesday it was down to 6 and based on the trends that we’re continuing to see come in it’s likely that later today the partisan voting difference will be smaller yet again. Now it’s obviously still too early to know how this story’s going to end, but as I mentioned earlier this week – the trend is very much Trump’s friend. Consider this. If Republicans weren’t to make any additional progress in bridging the turnout gap between today and Election Day – and simply maintained the margins we currently see, Republicans would enter Election Day 8.3% better off by way of turnout compared to Election Day four years ago in an election cycle in which Joe Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points. Are some of the new, early voters former Election Day voters? Yes. Do we know how non-party affiliated voters are voting, as they go to the polls? No. But you don’t have to be a data scientist or an election analyst to know that a turnout deficit of 6 points is significantly better than 14.3 points and that’s where we were as of Wednesday.
- In Florida, the news is even better for team Trump and presumably Republicans down ballot. Florida’s Democrats held pre-Election Day turnout advantages over Republicans in each of the prior two presidential elections which were both won by Donald Trump. As of Wednesday, Republicans had grown their voter turnout lead in the state to nearly 5-points – the best pre-Election Day advantage for the GOP in Florida’s history. And much like the country as a whole, it appears as if the margins are well positioned to grow with Republicans driving turnout through early in person voting in much larger numbers than Democrats. Here’s another way of analyzing what we’re seeing happen so far. The country overall is so far running over 8 points to the right of where it was prior to Election Day four years ago, and Florida’s running 11 points to the right of the country today. If Republicans continue to “Swamp the Vote”, as Trump puts it, there could be a lot of races in play on Election Day that pundits don’t have flagged as being toss-ups today...that’s true in Florida and that’s true across the country. And speaking of Florida, and early voting, the former and perhaps future president of the United States said Wednesday that’s exactly how he’ll be voting. So, we can expect to see him soon at an early voting location near you. And from the actual polls to the political polls...
- It’s likely to go down to the wire on Amendments 3 and 4. Florida had its first credibly sampled poll to come out in over two weeks. It was released by the Hill/Emerson yesterday. In explaining what I mean by credibly sampled... 39.4% of Florida’s registered voters are Republicans. 31.8% are Democrats. 28.8% are NPA and minor party affiliated. That means any credibility sampled poll within this state should be especially close to those splits. Here’s a hint, most aren’t. In fact, they’re not even close and for that reason they’re not worth thinking about and they’re certainly not worth talking about. But the Hill/Emerson poll released yesterday is the closest to accurately sampling the state that I’ve seen in this election cycle yet. Their sample under sampled both Democrats and Republicans by 0.4%, while oversampling NPAs by 0.8%. That’s about as good as you can expect a pollster to get. And the headline numbers were especially good for Trump in his home state. The poll showed an 8-point lead for Trump overall with majority support by women within the state. To date, the only potentially competitive state where Donald Trump has shown a lead with women has been Arizona. That’s worth watching closely in other swing states as we get closer to Election Day – if Trump is in fact trending better with women than in the prior two presidential elections. The other notable race to grab a headline or two was Florida’s senate race with Rick Scott shown with a slightly better than 4-point lead over Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Still more interesting to me were the amendments. While pollsters still don’t seem to want to poll on the other 4 Amendments on our ballots this cycle – they are still regularly polling on Amendments 3 and 4. I was especially interested to see what this poll had to say because as mentioned the sample was credible for a change, but also because as we’re until two weeks away from Election Day many taking the survey aren’t just indicating how the intend to vote but instead how they’ve already voted. Just about 11% of the participants in the Harris/Emerson poll had already cast a ballot at the polls. On Amendment 3, the recreational marijuana amendment, just over 60% of Floridians expressed their support with just under 6% who said they were unsure. On Amendment 4, the abortion amendment, 52% of Floridians participating in the survey indicated their support with a still large 17% saying they were unsure. 60% support is the magic number that’s needed for proposed amendments to pass. What this shows is that the outcome with both amendments is likely to be very close. Amendment 3, appears to be in a somewhat favorable position to pass, while Amendment 4, appears likely to come down to how late breakers mostly break on the issue as to whether it will pass. For decades Floridians were accustomed to razor close finishes with general elections. While that’s unlikely to happen at the top of the ticket this time around, the high-profile amendments at the bottom of it could be the elections to go down to the wire this time around.