Vice President Kamala Harris has closed the polling gap with former President Donald Trump among Wisconsin voters, according to polls taken since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“What we’re seeing is that voters under the age of 50, independents and ethnic minorities, especially African American voters, are swinging back towards the Democratic party,” said Matt Taglia, a senior director at Emerson College polling.
Emerson’s poll is one of several that show Harris leading Trump when voters are asked to choose between the two. A survey conducted July 22-23 showed Harris leading Trump 51-49, within the poll’s margin of error.
When other candidates were included in the question, Harris and Trump were tied 45-45, with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting 3 percent support and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 1 percent.
“She changed the dynamics of the race substantially. She moved five points in the margin in Wisconsin, and so I don’t think we necessarily need to wait to see what changes are taking effect as a result of Harris on the ticket,” Taglia said.
Still, with an expected vice presidential announcement in the next several days and the Democratic National convention in less than two weeks, he said it will take some time to get a firmer sense of how the race has changed.
I’m excited by this but who responds to polls?
People who both answer calls from unknown numbers, and then interact with those callers. That's most likely to be older people, who grew up in a paradigm where "When the phone rings, you answer it."
This suggests to me that younger people are very poorly represented in these polls. Yes, I know that poll results are weighted to match different demographics, but how do you get the opinion of people who won't talk to you?
My gut tells me that the poll results are unavoidably favoring the Republican candidate.
Modern polls are moving more online/text based. Regardless respondents are probably only the zealots and the bored. Polls have a large margin of error generally. So even most polls that showed Hilary winning in 2016 were accurate to her losing.
The weirder part to me is looking at Dem vs Rep in general and 538 has that as even right now. Post-Roe I really hoped that would be higher. I think it shows just how much rightwing influence is in mainstream media not just Fox and the alt-right outlets.
@phdepressed also remember hilary won in '16. The only time Republican nominee won since '89 was W in '04.
Yes, we should be popular vote based but we're not. So long as we don't get rid of the electoral college it will remain the determining factor in an election win or loss.
Oddly enough, Emerson College has conducted research in order to determine the answer to that question.