‘Entire electoral pool’ has ‘changed’ in the US election, according to top pollster
The “entire” American electorate has been transformed in less than a month, according to one of the nation’s top pollsters.
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Kamala Harris’s elevation as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the United States, replacing President Joe Biden, has changed “the entire electoral pool” over the past month, according to one of the country’s most respected pollsters.
Frank Luntz, a Republican-leaning political consultant, is best known for running focus groups with undecided voters, and for providing political analysis on television.
On Wednesday, US time, Mr Luntz appeared on Squawk Box, a program focused on business and political news broadcast by CNBC.
Introducing the segment, host Andrew Sorkin noted that polls had taken a major “turn” towards the Democrats since Ms Harris took over from Mr Biden, who withdrew from the race three-and-a-half weeks ago.
“It’s more than that,” said Mr Luntz.
“She’s bringing out people who are not interested in voting for either Trump or Biden. So the entire electoral pool has changed.
“And if it continues in this direction, you have to start to consider Democrats winning the Senate and Democrats winning the House.”
The Republicans currently control the House of Representatives with a thin majority of 220-212. Every member is up for re-election in November.
In the Senate, the Democrats hold an even smaller 51-49 majority (which includes four members who are technically independents). A third of that chamber’s seats will be contested this year, 19 of which are currently held by the Democrats, 10 by the Republicans, and four by independents.
Only a dozen or so of those Senate seats are considered winnable by either side, and a whopping 11 are held by the Democrats, with just one incumbent Republican.
The key factor to consider, in US politics, is that voting is not compulsory. In a country like Australia, where it’s required, elections tend to come down to convincing a handful of swing voters in the middle to support you. In America, candidates also need to convince people to vote at all.
“The actual people who are participating – she’s got intensity now. She’s got an intensity advantage. She’s got a demographic advantage. And I haven’t seen anything like this happen in 30 days in my lifetime,” Mr Luntz continued to explain.
“How big is that? That marginal extra voter that she’s bringing in? I mean, how much does that change the pool?” followed up reporter Melissa Lee.
“One per cent, maybe two. That’s it. But that’s enough,” replied Mr Luntz.
Are the polls getting it wrong?
Of course, polls can be inaccurate, and in the past they have slightly underestimated Donald Trump’s support.
“Can I just ask you about the veracity, frankly, of the polls right now?” asked Mr Sorkin.
“Because you go back and look, there was an interesting report yesterday showing that if you look at where Donald Trump was, in terms of what the polling showed at this point back in 2016, (they) undercounted (his support. You know, even in 2020, undercounted.
“And so you start to think about the margin of error, or a situation where maybe she’s up, you know, 1 or 2 per cent. But you know, is the Trump vote fully counted?”
“That’s why my process is not just to do the numbers. It’s also to do the focus groups to listen, to understand why people feel this way,” Mr Luntz responded.
“And now my groups are broken up by young women saying, ‘I’m not voting for him anymore.’
“The people who are undecided have all collapsed towards Harris. The people who are weak Trump have all collapsed towards undecided. It’s this broad shift.
“I’m trying to do a focus group tonight with undecided voters under the age of 27 for a news outlet. I can’t recruit young women to this, because they don’t exist as undecided voters.
“You shift the demographics and you shift the entire outcome. There are issues, attributes, and the conditions of the country. The issues and conditions favoured Donald Trump. He should be winning this election. But the attributes are so much in Harris’s favour that he’s not.
“It’s as though he’s lost control. And I know that there are billionaires who watch this show who are spending a lot of money on Trump, and they don’t understand why he’s committing political suicide.”
Trump ‘giving away’ the election
Ms Lee asked whether the problems were even “fixable” for Mr Trump.
“It sounds like the reasons why women, or undecided women, are now deciding to vote for Kamala Harris – those are things that cannot be fixed,” she said.
“Yes. So there are three issues,” said Mr Luntz, going on to detail a handful of policy areas Mr Trump could focus on. He argued the former president was sabotaging himself by instead talking about unimportant things, like the size of his rally crowds.
“One is affordability. You should not call it inflation every again. It’s housing, healthcare, food and fuel. And the people Trump needs cannot afford it every week, or every month.
“Second, wasteful Washington spending. Which you’re not talking about anywhere. Hardworking taxpayers hate it when they see their money being wasted.
“And third, it’s not just immigration. It’s safety and security.
“She’s talking about the number one issue facing the country. And Donald Trump is talking about crowd size. What the hell?
“He’s now talking about this election being stolen. You can’t steal what is being given away. He is giving away this election.”
What the latest polls say
The momentum definitely favours Ms Harris at the moment, given how far behind the Democrats were before she took over as their candidate. However polls show the race is still, essentially, a toss-up.
Compare the Vice President’s numbers to those of both Mr Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and you find she is ahead of Mr Trump by a smaller margin than either of them were at this stage of the campaign.
Ms Clinton, of course, went on to lose to Mr Trump in the electoral college, despite the fact that she’d received about three million more votes than him. Mr Biden won the popular vote by about seven million, but if fewer than 100,000 people had voted differently across a few key swing states, he would have lost too.
Realistically, Ms Harris will need to win the popular vote by at least a few percentage points to actually beat Mr Trump. All he needs is, at worst, a tie.
It all comes down to the swing states. The Cook Political Report has just published an extensive new breakdown, going state by state, which carries good news for Ms Harris – though we should note it was in the field in early August.
Cook shows her ahead of Mr Trump in Wisconsin (48-43), Arizona (46-42), North Carolina (46-44), Pennsylvania (48-43) and Michigan (46-44). Mr Trump leads in Nevada (47-42) and the two candidates are tied in Georgia (46-46).
Transpose those results onto the political map and you have Ms Harris leading the electoral vote 297-225, with Georgia’s 16 votes still up for grabs. The threshold for victory is 270.
The latest Morning Consult poll shows Ms Harris leading 47-44 in the national vote.
Meanwhile a fresh Fox News poll shows Mr Trump edging Ms Harris 50-49 in a two-way race. With minor candidates added, independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr claims a small chunk, 6 per cent, causing both Mr Trump and Ms Harris to fall back to 45 per cent.
It’s an indication that Mr Kennedy’s presence in the race is doing slightly more harm to Mr Trump’s chances of winning.
Dive into the crosstabs of the Fox News survey and there is some particularly encouraging news for the Republican: he is winning among independent voters 51-43.
That contradicts the aforementioned Morning Consult survey, which had Ms Harris ahead 42-37 among independents.
Originally published as ‘Entire electoral pool’ has ‘changed’ in the US election, according to top pollster
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