https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/upshot/polling-methods-election.html#
Here is an interesting article that kind of explains some of what we're seeing. It is about how many pollsters are using weighting by recall results, which is explained better in the article. Essentially, there is a concerted effort among legitimate pollsters to weigh the data in such a way that will prevent a Trump underestimation the likes of which happened in 2016 and 2020.
The problem with this is that the weighing is based on the assumption that turnout will be similar to 2020, and so it skews the data to pretty closely reflect the 2020 results. The weighting process makes it really hard to come up with results that vary very much from the last election. That's why we really are seeing in the most part results that are very similar to 2020.
In other words, to my understanding, they are trying to ensure their sample reflects the 2020 electorate. The only way the polls will shift very far from that result is if there are people changing their minds. And... really, it's hard to see that happening much. It's pretty clear that nothing Trump says or does will dissuade many people, or conversely that he's winning over tons of new voters.
For example, the Marist poll which does use weighting has Trump at a 4% lead in Florida. Trump won the state by 3.2 in 2020. In the times poll, which does not use weighting, the result is Trump winning by 14%. I don't think Trump is winning by 14%, but I also think it's very unlikely that he's winning by only 4%. The 2022 election results and our eyes and ears would tell us that we would expect Florida to be more republican than it has been in the past. In this case, the weighting actually may be hurting Trump, but in any states that may be getting bluer, the opposite will be true.
So, both methodologies have their flaws. The good news, assuming you are not a Trump supporter, is that there is not likely to be a drastic underestimation of Trump as there was, particularly in certain states like there was the last two elections. Tying into what we were talking about before, it also seems clear that there are low quality polls designed to show Trump performing well. There were also some of those in 2020, but those were kind of washed out by the fact that Trump was being underrated in more legitimate polls. If we assume that the more legitimate polls are not underestimating Trump and there are polls overrating him, then the picture changes quite a bit.
So, at the very least, this explainst why we shouldn't judge 2024 polls the same way we did in 2020. They are far less likely to be underrating Trump. The only way they would do so is if Trump has a massive surge from where he was in 2020, and I just don't see that happening. It is possible though that the polls are underrating Harris. My personal opinion is that Harris is a stronger candidate than Biden was, and that Trump is a bit weaker than he was in 2020. Time will tell.
