How close is the 2024 presidential election? 

Here is how the New York Times framed it recently: “Never in modern presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this close to Election Day. Polling averages show that all seven battleground states are within the margin of error, meaning the difference between a half-point up and a half-point down — essentially a rounding error — could win or lose the White House.” 

A recent Times-Sienna poll has the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked at 48 to 48. Other polls are similarly close — which does not mean they are all telling the same story. Today’s guest, Kristen Soltis Anderson, writes that although “several of them show a dead heat, beneath the surface, they diverge in how they arrive at that result”. 

What stories can we glean from each poll? What theories of this election can we derive from those stories? Are the polls even right? And why, despite verbal gaffes and incendiary rallies and international conflict and general campaign turmoil, have the polling averages remained so steady in recent months? 

Kristen is a founding partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm, and contributing Opinion writer to the New York Times, where she often writes about what is knowable and not knowable based on the polls. We talk about all these themes, including a theory of the election that Kristen came upon while watching football in Phoenix on a Sunday.

Finally, we discuss a detailed survey of American workers that Echelon Insights, Kristen’s firm, put into the field for the Economic Innovation Group — and its most surprising findings. 

All this and more on today’s episode!

RELATED LINKS: 

Opinion | The Polls Show a Dead Heat, but They Don’t All Tell the Same Story

Opinion | Two Weeks to Go, but Only One Way to Stay Calm

Opinion | This Year’s October Surprise May Be That There Isn’t One

Opinion | Why the Election Is Coming Down to Defining Kamala Harris - The New York Times

Opinion | I’ve Studied the Polls. Here’s Why Harris Isn’t Running Away With It.

The American Worker Project Survey: Key Findings Deck

American workers and the 2024 election

Kristen’s website

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