OPINION:
Pollsters are like weather forecasters — they can be wrong repeatedly and still don’t get fired.
With less than 70 days until Election Day, the polls are all over the place. Former President Donald Trump led most of them before the Democratic National Convention and after President Biden dropped out and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. Still, now he’s — down by 7 percentage points?!
This week’s survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University found Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump nationally, with 50% support to 43%. But how accurate are those guys? The political website 538 puts them at No. 32, just ahead of the University of Arkansas Department of Political Science.
In the last month, only Fox News, Rasmussen, CNBC and HarrisX have put Mr. Trump ahead. Everyone else says Ms. Harris is winning, with an average of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics showing the vice president with a 1.5-point lead.
As good as it is, RCP isn’t always right. In 2020, its final average put Mr. Biden up by 7.1 points; he won by 4.4 points. In 2016, RCP put Hillary Clinton up by 6.3 points; she won the popular vote by 2.1 points but lost the Electoral College 304-227.
Polls showing Ms. Harris ahead have alarmed James Carville, the architect behind former President Bill Clinton’s two victories. He says the news is not all good.
“I challenge Democrats with some caution here,” he said on Bill Maher’s HBO show. “First of all, most want to say we have to win by three in the popular vote to win the Electoral College. So when you see a poll that says we’re two up, well, that’s actually, you’re one down, if the poll is correct.”
“The other thing is Trump traditionally, when he’s on the ballot, chronically under-polls,” Mr. Carville added.
Polling used to be easy: You grabbed a phone book, called people at home — on their landlines, mind you — and collected some data. Modern polling is far more difficult, and there’s a reason the polls might be even less accurate this time.
For one, Trump supporters — if they happen to answer the phone — don’t trust the media or pollsters, so they might not participate. And some Trumpers might not want to say they support him.
On the other hand, young people don’t answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize — and they don’t have landlines. So maybe they’re underrepresented in the polls, too.
Scott Rasmussen said after the 2016 election that pollsters were echoing the media in supporting Mrs. Clinton, even though that was wrong.
“The media created a false narrative about the 2016 presidential campaign, and most polling reinforced it,” Mr. Rasmussen wrote on his website back then. “Our polling showed that issues, not the media-fed controversies, would ultimately decide the election.”
And even though the 2024 election is near, we have miles to go before we sleep. For instance, in late August 2020, national polls predicted that Mr. Biden was up by 9 points over Mr. Trump — but he won by less than half that.
Mr. Carville said Ms. Harris’ lead is not real. “Traditionally, with Trump on the ballot … Democrats say, ‘Oh, James, you’re a Debbie Downer.’ I’m not. I’m just telling you, you got to win by three.”
Recent polls don’t show much bounce for Ms. Harris after the Democratic National Convention, and there are land mines ahead — namely, the debates. The vice president is running from Mr. Biden’s dismal record on just about everything, but it will take time for pollsters to figure out if that’s really working.
This much we know, as summed up succinctly this month by The Atlantic: “The 2016 election lives in popular memory as perhaps the most infamous polling miss of all time, but 2020 was quietly even worse. The polls four years ago badly underestimated Trump’s support even as they correctly forecast a Joe Biden win.”
The pollsters think they’ve got it right this time. Of course, time will tell. But just like weather forecasters, when they get it all wrong — again — they’ll be back with more predictions.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.
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