‘Shocking is an understatement’: Pollsters split on US election result
Just days out from the US presidential election, the most accurate pollster in the 2020 race has one candidate pulling ahead in the swing states, but not all polls are telling the same story, James Morrow writes.
Opinion
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It’s a case of duelling pollsters as the US presidential election comes down to the wire.
New numbers released by polling firm AtlasIntel, which was the most accurate pollster in 2020’s presidential race, has just released new swing state numbers suggesting that Donald Trump would handily win the election.
The poll numbers, which dropped Saturday US time, gave handy leads to Trump in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the must-win state of Pennsylvania.
AtlasIntel also gave Trump a two-point lead nationally and suggested he would win 312 electoral votes on election night, well over the 270 needed to claim the White House.
Despite the numbers, Democrats were buoyed by a poll from Ann Selzer in Iowa’s Des Moines Register, giving Kamala Harris a three-point lead – 47 per cent to Trump’s 44 – in Iowa, a midwestern state that Republicans had long put in their win column.
The numbers caused confusion in political circles, with some wondering whether Selzer’s poll was an outlier despite her strong track record predicting races in Iowa.
“Shocking is an understatement for this poll,” Frank Luntz, sometimes called “the Nostradamus of pollsters”, said on X.
“Ann Selzer is considered the best pollster in Iowa. Nevertheless, even the best of pollsters are not immune from producing outliers.
Meanwhile, both campaigns maintained a whirlwind pace with less than 72 hours to go in the campaign.
Harris’s campaign plane made an unannounced diversion en route to an event in Detroit to head to New York for an appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Meanwhile Trump is holding a series of rallies in North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
He also stopped in Virginia, a state Biden won by a large margin in 2020 but which also elected Republican Glenn Youngkin governor in 2021 on a platform of education, the economy, and pushing back against critical race theory and identity politics.
“We win Virginia, we win the whole thing,” Trump told a crowd in Salem, Virginia.
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