Democrats are fearing a “Trump surge” with male voters, based on polls historically not accurately reflecting support for former President Donald Trump, according to a report.
“Trump is winning men who have not [previously] voted,” Celinda Lake, one of two leading pollsters for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign told the Hill. “Most pollsters are adjusting. Our firm looks at two turnout estimates now. One the average and one looking at [a] Trump surge.”
She said that with polls showing battleground states balanced on a knife-edge, “I think we still have to worry about a Trump surge.”
If that happens, Harris does not have leeway, according to the Hill, since its polling averages with Decision Desk HQ show her leading nationally only by 3.4 points and by less than a percentage point in two of three vital “blue wall” states, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Harris leads by three points in Wisconsin.
Feeding this fear is that Trump has “consistently outperformed” his poll numbers in the past.
In the past, polls had accurately predicted support for the Democrat candidate, but not support for Trump, the Hill said.
For example, RealClearPolitics (RCP)’s final polling average before the 2016 Election Day underestimated Trump’s vote share by almost 7 points. RCP’s average projected Trump receiving 40.3 percent of the vote, but he beat Hillary Clinton with 47.2 percent of the vote.
Possible reasons were that pollsters’ models had underestimated rural and exurban turnout for Trump, or that Trump supporters were more reluctant to respond to surveys, or that some poll respondents lied about who they were supporting.
The 2020 national polls were worse than in 2016, the report said. RCP’s final average underestimated Trump’s vote share by almost three points. It underestimated support for Trump in Wisconsin by almost five points.
There have not been enough polls since last week’s debate to show whether it moved the needle, according to the report.
Trump pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis said in a memo that their own polls showed a two-point bump for Trump, while support for Harris “remained flat.” Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll showed Harris with a five-point national lead.
The Decision Desk HQ currently gives Harris a 54 percent chance of winning, but its director of data science, Scott Tranter, warned against taking that number with confidence.
He told the Hill it means that if the election were run 20 times, Harris would win 11 times and Trump 9 times.
“If you feel comfortable with a 54 percent chance, then you probably have to understand probabilities a little better,” he said. “This is a coin flip. Nobody should be surprised if Kamala Harris wins or if Donald Trump wins, any more than you would be surprised if you flipped a coin and it came up tails.”
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