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Trump’s polls show he is in better shape now than in 2020 and 2016
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Trump’s polls show he is in better shape now than in 2020 and 2016

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WASHINGTON — If the polls are any guide — and there are many questions about them — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is in better shape now than he was at this point in 2020 and during his winning 2016 White House campaign.

Yes, Trump trails Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in most polls. But the most important caveat is that he faces the incumbent vice president with a narrower lead than in his first two general elections, both of which he polled higher with actual voters than those who responded to polls.

To be sure, Republicans are counting on what some pollsters have called the “hidden Trump vote,” though pollsters also say it’s not certain that group still exists. At a rally on Wednesday in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed a poll showed him up 3 percentage points in the Keystone State, “which probably means 10.”

The Trump campaign, which lost the 2016 popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by just over 2 percentage points but won enough states to prevail in the Electoral College, also follows the theory that the closer the 2024 national polls are, the greater are his chances. to win more electoral votes.

That is not a given, say the pollsters.

During this cycle, pollsters have changed their methodologies, in part to account for “hidden” Trump voters; including people who plan to vote for him but don’t want to say so publicly, or other supporters who are difficult to find through traditional voting methods such as telephone calls. Also, several groups of voters are showing increasing signs of increasing voter participation due to emerging issues, from anti-abortion laws to the rising cost of living.

“There are fundamental questions that no one can answer until Election Day,” said pollster Frank Luntz.

Moreover, the national polls are less important than individual state polls, and they are also almost evenly split. Most polls are well within the margin of error in the seven major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina.

“The only thing you can say with certainty is that the seven swing states are all very close to each other,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “They are all effectively tied.”

As of Friday, the Real Clear Politics average of recent national polls gives Harris a 1.8% lead over Trump.

Four years ago, Democratic candidate Joe Biden currently had a 10.3 percentage point lead over then-President Trump in the national RCP average; Biden won the popular and electoral votes by much smaller margins. In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton led the national RCP average with 6%.

Both elections were much closer.

In 2016, Clinton won the popular vote over Trump 48.2% to 46.1% (the remainder of the votes were spread among third-party candidates, most notably Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein). However, Trump won the Electoral College by a margin of 304 to 227 (plus seven “faithless electors” who voted for other candidates).

Four years later, Biden won the popular vote over Trump by a larger margin, from 51.3% to 46.9%. He also took the Electoral College 306-232.

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who studies data, said pollsters have corrected previous methodological errors. He also noted that Republican candidates for the U.S. House and Senate underperformed in the polls in the 2022 midterm elections, and that Trump himself underperformed in this year’s Republican presidential primary.

Harris and the Democrats have an equal chance of the hidden vote this time, he said.

“The election is very close,” Rosenberg said. “Everything is within the margin of error… But because we have meaningful financial and land advantages, we are even more likely to pull it out.”

Ultimately, no one really knows whether this election will be more like 2016 or more like 2020 — or even something completely different.

“I think it’s somewhere in between,” Luntz said. “And that’s why it’s too close to call.”