There are many ways to judge the state of a presidential or Senate race beyond the tsunami of polls we attempt to process in the run-up to Election Day. While the trajectory of national and swing-state polling appears to favor the former president with just days to go until all votes are cast, the behavior of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and down-ballot candidates on both sides is arguably even more revealing.

Trump was pumped up as he put it all on the line in a much-ballyhooed rally on Sunday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden. To the strains of a live version of God Bless the USA, the 45th president strode onto the stage of the world’s most famous arena, after being introduced to the overflow audience by his wife for the last major speech of his third and final presidential campaign of an era he has largely defined. He channeled Ronald Reagan by kicking off his speech with that oft-repeated rhetorical question: Are you better off than you were four years ago? He spoke of a new golden age and reprised his most famous phrase prior to entering the political stage: “Kamala, you’re fired.”

He accused Vice President Harris of “shattering the middle class,” while promising to “make America affordable again.” He promised to end inflation and stop the invasion of criminals on the southern border, and to “build the greatest economy in the history of the world.” He reiterated his proposals to do away with taxes on tips, overtime, and social security benefits, and announced a new tax credit for caregivers, and making interest on car loans tax-deductible – but only for cars made in America. He reiterated his enthusiastic support for tariffs and used video clips about a vicious Venezuelan gang that has seized control of apartment complexes in Colorado and Texas, promising to reinstitute the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. He called for the death penalty for killing a police officer and for making sanctuary cities illegal.

The speech covered the waterfront, and – as most close observers say – Trump is in the zone, appearing happier than at any other time since he strode onto the political stage. And since we know the Donald loves nothing more than winning, that tells you something by itself. His speeches have become loftier, more uplifting, his rhetoric centering more around prospects for the future instead of grievances about the past. He has clearly adopted the stance of a Reagan-style happy warrior more than during his previous two campaigns for the White House. His recent maneuver at McDonald’s, designed to embarrass Harris and her unverifiable claim that she worked at America’s favorite restaurant, revealed a comfortable and enduring connection between the New York billionaire and everyday Americans. […]

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Pundits Predict Trouble

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer encapsulated the stalling campaign of Kamala Harris in a brief but damning denouement on Thursday. He said:

“I’m hearing this from top Republicans and top Democrats, that Harris seems to have stalled out a bit in the last couple of weeks. You know, she had a great rollout, great convention, very successful debate, but she seemed to have plateaued. One top Republican said two weeks ago, I would’ve said that she was a slight favorite. He said today I’d say Trump is a slight favorite.”

His sentiment here was echoed by colleague Chris Wallace (formerly of Fox News), who said, prior to Obama’s PA stump efforts, that Harris’ campaign had “plateaued,” and he suggested that heavy hitters were needed to shore up falling support. “Barack Obama is probably the most popular democrat in the country,” he said. “I think you see him, he’s gonna be in Pittsburgh tonight you’ll see him in a lot of urban areas, obviously, trying to help Kamala Harris with a weakness she has with younger below 50 black men.”

And he was 100% correct that Obama made that pitch. […]

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Now, consider this: Pew Research Center has discovered that polls have been less accurate when former President Donald Trump is on the ballot when compared to other polls in the past 20 years. If this is true, what does that say about Harris’ numbers? Could the combination of the vice president’s media-embellished hype and Trump’s impact on the polls be fabricating a flawed view?

One well-known issue with polls is “forced choice.” Let’s say participants have only three options. If their opinion is not listed, they choose the statement closest to how they feel. Not only do polls “limit people’s sense of wider possibilities,” but “those who pay the pollsters commonly influence the scope of ideas and attitudes deemed worthy of consideration,” claims national media watch group FAIR.

“A good pollster is like a good attorney, and fights for the result that the commissioning party expects or needs,” quipped Christopher Hitchens in 1992, writing for Harper’s. “[I]n the parlance, such a poll is called ‘client-directed.’ Pollsters themselves make no bones about their influence on the outcome.” […]

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Independents Rising

According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 43% of the American electorate self-identify as independent voters. This number has grown over the years and is now larger than both major political parties: each taps out roughly the same, around 27%. Gallup went a bit further and asked if these independents leaned Democratic or Republican. After tracking this since 1992, the pollster found that, for most of the time, independents leaned blue. However, in 2022, that began to change, and now Gallup gives the Republicans a 45% to 43% edge over the Democrats. But this is a mere blip on the screen compared to another survey.

When digging deeper into the political leanings of the independent voter, a separate study unearthed some relevant information regarding what this part of the electorate believes. A recent article in Issues & Insights highlighted a survey conducted by Populace, a non-partisan think tank, which homed in on something called the Social Pressure Index (SPI). It was a large study comprising more than 19,000 people, and it asked a lot of questions. But they weren’t the usual polling queries such as “Whom would you vote for?” Instead, “It estimates the gap between Americans’ privately held beliefs and their publicly stated opinions.” […]

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