Harris and Trump are tied in 538's new polling averages
As of Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern, our average of national polls says Harris has the support of 45.0 percent of voters, while Trump garners 43.5 percent.
That 1.5-percentage-point lead is within our average's uncertainty interval, which you can think of as a sort of margin of error for our polling averages.
It's a little weird that they say Harris is "tied" with trump, even though she's ahead by 1.5%. That seems like a big deal. Margin of error is important, but it's just factually true that Vice President Harris is up by an average of 1.5%.
I looked back at how 538 treated polls when trump was up by a similar amount:
https://abcnews.go.com/538/polls-after-presidential-debate/story?id=111610497
In 538's national polling average, Trump now leads by 1.4 percentage points over Biden, while the two candidates were just about tied on June 27, the day of the debate.
So Harris up by 1.5% is actually "tied", but trump up on Biden by 1.4% is "leads" (and explicitly different from "tied"!). No mention of margin of error in that paragraph.
🤔🤔🤔
They're by different writers, and I know on their podcast I have heard people disagree in the past about things like whether a polling difference is meaningful, so maybe they're just each calling it like they see it.
Yeah, I didn't check that. It makes sense but they still have editors. I'm not saying there's some conspiracy to keep Kamala down, but watch for this to coincidentally happen again.
Being up by 1.5% is huge. Biden being down by 1.4% caused him to drop out.
It's in the right direction, but Democrats need to overperform nationally to be in good shape in the electoral college. Big movement from where Biden was, but it needs to keep going. A Democrat down 1.4% is almost a sure loss, but a Democrat up 1.5% isn't a sure win.
And covid and not being able to string a sentence together and most of his advisors becoming doomers immediately after the debate.
While it’s good that she’s tied it up- it’s fucking pathetic that this is even a decision to make. That orange piece of shit felon shouldn’t be allowed run.
Supreme Court gets the assist. Some states would have him off the ballot right now I think.
Yup. Let's not forget that Colorado, Illinois, and Maine would have all disqualified Trump within their rights as a state, but SCOTUS overruled them.
The big thing here is that polls skew right. They have been for years. This is why Democrats have been winning again and again recently, by large margins. Young people don't participate in polls. We don't answer calls from numbers we don't know. I know I'm calling myself "young" as an elder millennial, but compared to people who answer every call, I am young. That's why polls skew right, then the election goes left. My generation and younger won't pick up the phone for numbers we don't recognize. We grew up in the tech world and know better. Boomers and GenX will pick up the phone and proudly proclaim their position. Recently polls have suggested that the right wing is ahead, yet they keep losing. Because they're losers, and I'm happy that my generation is blocking that bullshit. I hope the younger generations keep up with ending totalitarian rule and will continue the fight against psychopathy.
Generally yes, but no reason to get complacent. A large number of young people are also skewing right, particularly young men.
Also, the amount of young men for idolize people like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson is concerning, but nothing will be done to address it. Social media is just as bad for their appearance and mental health issues as IG beauty standards are for young women, ie mewing, etc.
Not only losers, they are weird
There are so many factors. I think raw polling numbers and single polls are problematic , and definitely need to be deciphered, unbiased, combined and aggregated by reputable pros (like Nate Silver and others). Then they actually gain value and accuracy.
I don't mind that. It bothers me when a paper-thin lead is reported as just a "lead" cuz it kills people's sense of urgency.
True. They could honestly both be an attempt at reverse psychology by a liberal staff.
National polling averages are nice and all, but what's the situation in the critical swing states? Popular vote should be fairly meaningless unless either side is up but like 25 points.
Fairly promising, at least in relation to Biden v Trump numbers
AZ: mostly even GA: mostly even MI: mostly even, Harris with a lead depending on how much you trust Morning Consult's numbers MN: Harris leads NV: mostly even WI: mostly even, slight lead for Harris
If I'm remembering right, most of those had Trump leading prior to Biden dropping out
Yeah I think you’re right about these states polling differently following Biden’s withdrawal. Pretty sure I remember trump being ahead in at least 4 of that set.
Though there’s some concern around rigging the electoral votes https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/
So if polls do tend to swing right these days, which looks possible, this could all be really good news....
Wouldn't the majority counting for president be nice
Polls are almost meaningless.
There's some value versus knowing nothing. But until October early voting actually begins, not worth obsessing over. To be fair, their forecast was still one of the better ones for that infamous election, dropping around 60-40 Clinton during election day (NYT was still 90-10). And I'm sure many things were learned from it, maybe even over-corrected, based on '20-22. I'll be following Nate's Silver Bulletin this year (he left 538 and took his algorithms).
but one of them has the forward momentum
And the other one has media attention all day every day since 2015. Never underestimate pure media attention.
Cool. Let's make it 65/35.
One has momentum and a convention bump coming up. The other is OLD, tired and really WEIRD.
Super old, with an atrocious VP. Worst presidential ticket in my lifetime by far.
Same, which is sad because I was 18 when bush was president. But if take bush 1000X over trump.
Yeah, I couldn't stand Bush, but he was a way stronger candidate than trump.
They didn't ask me and I'm sure as hell voting.
Fuck these Chrystal balls we're voting and we're winning
Margin of error might have been smaller before than it is now. Makes a ton of sense because the race has changed so rapidly.
Not sure this is what they are doing, but the republican advantage in the electoral college could explain the terminology here. With polls a dead heat, democrats are losing every time.
It’s not “a little weird” they clearly explained it. It’s SOP for assessing polling and you clearly got that based on what you wrote. They did the same thing when margins were closer for Biden and Trump. This is always how it has been done. It would be weird to suddenly stop doing that.
Was the post edited in the last 5 minutes? Seems it addressed this and gave an example of how it was different for Trump v Biden.
I can’t speak to that one individual case but I listen to the podcast pretty regularly and I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a single episode that didn’t mention the margin of error at some point. They almost bring it up too much to the point where it almost feels like they’re hedging their bets. But given what OP wrote I can see why they do now
Yeah calling this weird is simply a complete misunderstanding of basic statistics. If the lead is within the margin of error, it's absolutely fair to call it tied.
Yeah, because all of the "mainstream" news channels actually skew right, since they're constantly overcorrecting to appear non-biased.
Nate Silver has similar numbers. I don’t have a great deal of faith in polls or poll aggregators, but both of those put together is a good sign.
He used to be 538, not surprised they have similar methodologies
Yeah but he had significantly more pessimistic numbers for Biden from model launch to dropping out. Whether 538 was overly optimistic for the dems or Silver was overly pessimistic, it’s good news either way when both agree Harris is up
National polls are not relevant to who wins the election for the Presidency.
That’s not what anyone claims polls do so sure you’re correct?
See: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016
Claim is not that polls determine the Presidency. It's that a national poll is not relevant because Presidents are elected by state results via the EC.
“Irrelevant” is a bit of a stretch.
Al Gore and Hillary Clinton have entered the chat.
In a race this tight it's really not. If the national polling averages were showing either side having a massive lead it might be indicative, but at these ranges they're meaningless.
If the information wasn’t useful in any capacity then they wouldn’t bother publishing it.
That's silly logic. Media routinely publish things that are not relevant or useful but which generate fear, anxiety, and therefore attention
538 isn’t CNN and they take their model/polling aggregates very seriously. The standards are actually pretty high there.
Then what's the point of national polls except to assist media outlets in turning elections into horse races?
You could say that about any polls
Poll poll poll yer boat
Gently down the streaaaam
Dang, five downvotes? Someone loves them some polls!
Nate Silver - is that you and four alts??
538 is pure trash. Don’t boost their signal
Why do you say that? I thought they were one of the more credible sites.
I wouldn't say they are pure trash, but they have also lost all of the talent that made them great. Nate, Claire, The Whiz Kid Harry Enton. I stopped listening to the podcast when Claire left. I stopped reading the site when Nate left and took his model with him.
They get enhanced coverage every election year, get everything wrong, then brought in again 4 years later as experts.
Reminds me of the show Lost, where Sayid would plan a military style operation for the group. They’d all get captured because he was wrong, then have him plan the next military operation with immediate amnesia of how poorly he does at such things
All the people who founded it left. Nate Silver, who originally built the company, doesn't trust the new leadership, their model, or their treatment of polls.
They're credible for simply reporting poll results but the election model seems to have some issues.
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