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Today, I want to talk about a turn of events in the polling that as someone who does not support Trump, is upsetting to me, but if you support Trump, you might like this. I’m going to talk through what is happening in the polling now, as many of you have correctly pointed out, we don’t have a national popular vote in the United States, we have an electoral college. So when we look at the national popular vote polling, we see that Kamala Harris’s lead has been reduced. It was above two at one point. It’s now barely above one. Her national lead has been reduced. But what matters is not who wins the popular vote, although it is a common occurrence in American politics that the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote but sometimes loses the Electoral College, what matters is the Electoral College, and it matters specifically in the context of who can get 270 electoral votes, which invariably depends, invariably depends on a number of critical battleground states. Now, if you had looked at polling a month ago, you would have seen that the most likely outcome was Harris winning, but with a smaller margin of victory electorally than Joe Biden had. This was because a month ago, Kamala Harris was leading in Arizona, was leading in Nevada, was leading in Michigan was leading her tied in Pennsylvania, and where that would have put Kamala Harris is, yeah, she was probably going to lose Georgia, but she would still become president with a lower number of electoral votes than Joe Biden had. We now have a different scenario, and this is not about being optimistic or pessimistic. This is not about framing the conversation in order to encourage people to do A, B, C. This is just me telling you what the data say and reminding everyone of the importance of voting in the polling averages. Now on Real Clear Politics. Donald Trump is winning Arizona, which he lost in 2020 Donald Trump is winning Nevada, which he lost in 2020 Donald Trump is winning Georgia, which he lost in 2020 Donald Trump is winning Pennsylvania, which he lost in 2020 and Donald Trump, if you can believe it, is even leading in Michigan by a little bit, which he lost in 2020 If these results were to be reflective of the battleground state results. In November, Donald Trump would win with more than 300 electoral votes, and he would become, once again, President of the United States. Now we also should mention a lot of these leads for Trump in some of the states are by a fraction of a point. If you look at other polling aggregators, like, for example, 538 you would see that where Trump is winning by a fraction of a point, like Pennsylvania or Michigan on 538 Kamala Harris is winning by a fraction of a point, it’s easy to say, well, then we have no idea what’s going to happen. And in a sense, that’s true, because many of these states genuinely could come down to under one point. But that is exactly the takeaway. Anyone satisfied that Kamala Harris has this wrapped up would be making a very risky bet on something that is not reflected in the polling. Michigan genuinely could come down to 0.2% of the vote Georgia in 2020 came down to a member Trump. I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break, came down to 11,780 votes, or 789 something like that. When we see these polls say a candidates winning by point two, we may have elections in the states that are decided by two tenths of a point. Now I think there’s something else that’s important to consider in the polling. There are some of my left wing friends who write to me and say, you know, David, you can’t trust any of these polling averages because they are stuffed with fake Republican polls that are being generated to make it look like Trump is doing better than he’s doing. I have two reactions to that. Number one, if you want to help Trump, it’s not obvious to me that polls showing him ahead help him. If anything, you could argue that polls showing him slightly behind help him, because they motivate his followers to go, wow. He really needs my vote. I gotta get out there and vote. That’s number one. Number two, if you actually look at the polls that make up the Real Clear Politics, or 538, averages, yes, Rasmussen is in there. That’s a right leaning pollster, but Rasmussen has always been in there. That wouldn’t change anything. Rasmussen was part of these averages in 2020, Trafalgar group, a right leaning pollster sometimes is in there, but we’re only talking about a small effect. So if you are writing off the concern that Trump could genuinely run away with this thing in November, because you’re assuming that there are biased right wing polls in the data I’m presenting you, you are doing that at your own risk, and staying home could lead to Donald Trump. Is the next president. I don’t want that, so I’m doing everything I can. I’m telling you that this is what the data show. I’m going to vote. I’m going to tell my friends and family to vote. Beyond that, it’s up to all of us to overwhelm turnout so that it doesn’t depend on point 1% in Michigan to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.
