Speaker 1: Also media, welcome back to it could happen here a
Speaker 1: podcast where Robert Evans is lying down on a couch
Speaker 1: because he just feels exhausted from sleeping a leven full hours. Garrison,
Speaker 1: you were much younger than me and don't seem to
Speaker 1: feel exhausted because you just woke up after staying up
Speaker 1: all night, did you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, not as exhausted.
Speaker 1: I hate do not hate you?
Speaker 2: Do you do? You know what is exhausting? Robert?
Speaker 1: Elections?
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty four presidential election.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty four presidential election. Yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 1: I hate it, Garrison, I hate it. But also I
Speaker 1: have made a commitment. I have made a commitment to
Speaker 1: making a prediction about the election this year and sticking
Speaker 1: to it even though it's going to make everybody angry.
Speaker 1: And I have a good reason for doing so. It's
Speaker 1: because I want to try one of the rarest drugs
Speaker 1: that exists in the world today. That Nate Silver Shit. See,
Speaker 1: everyone's been wondering since like twenty twenty's what's up with
Speaker 1: that guy? Did he like lose his mind? Was he
Speaker 1: always kind of like out there and we just didn't
Speaker 1: notice because he he got lucky a couple of elections
Speaker 1: in a row. And the answer to that is no,
Speaker 1: Nate was a pretty reasonable guy. He comes out of
Speaker 1: like not politics. He only got into politics in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six because they banned online gambling and he
Speaker 1: got angry about it. And then he accurately predicted the
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and twenty twelve elections.
Speaker 2: Which wasn't hard to be frin, It wasn't hard.
Speaker 1: No, it was not. I mean, he got all the
Speaker 1: states right, but it was just a matter because people
Speaker 1: have pointed out he didn't seem to be nearly as
Speaker 1: accurate in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty. There's a degree
Speaker 1: of fairness to that, but like twight and twenty twelve
Speaker 1: were our last non smartphone elections where they're wasn't this
Speaker 1: like big you know, demon of social media kind of
Speaker 1: hiding behind everything and making everything a lot weirder? And
Speaker 1: I think part of you know, I think what ultimately
Speaker 1: caused Nate's madness, though, is that in twenty sixteen he
Speaker 1: did pretty well. He like laid out he was a
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent chance of Trump winning, and when he
Speaker 1: like explained what that chance was, how Trump might sweep
Speaker 1: the blue Firewall States and whatnot. It's basically what wound
Speaker 1: up happening, and as like a reward for being more
Speaker 1: or less correct. While the election was going on, all
Speaker 1: of the Democrats hated him because the news sources they
Speaker 1: liked said that Trump had only a two percent chance
Speaker 1: of winning, and then when the election was over, it
Speaker 1: became like mainstream kind of reality to just say, Yeahate,
Speaker 1: Nate fucked that one up. He finally screwed up, And
Speaker 1: I think that that mix of things is what's driven
Speaker 1: him insane. So I've decided to predict that there's a
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent chance that the election is basically the
Speaker 1: same as twenty twenty. And now, unlike Nate, I don't
Speaker 1: have any kind of math to back that up. It's
Speaker 1: just a gut feeling. But I'm I'm calling that now
Speaker 1: because I want people to get really angry at me now,
Speaker 1: and then ideally, when I'm right, they'll get even angrier
Speaker 1: at me, and then I can go and say it
Speaker 1: on social media and just gradly become completely unhinged and
Speaker 1: see what it's like to be Nate Silver, the ultimate
Speaker 1: high Garrison.
Speaker 2: See, I thought you were gonna say you thought there
Speaker 2: was a twenty nine percent chance that Nate Silver would
Speaker 2: just completely completely lose it and do some like like you.
Speaker 1: Do a major terrorism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely what I thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he drives a double decker bus into the end
Speaker 1: of the Lincoln Memorial. God, that's my that's my hope.
Speaker 2: He storms the five thirty eight headquarters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gonna take it back once and for all.
Speaker 2: Okay, so today we're going to be talking about election polling.
Speaker 2: The debate is very very soon here in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 2: and as a little bit of a preparatory measure, we
Speaker 2: want to go over some of the actual poll numbers
Speaker 2: for the twenty twenty four presidential election. I like to
Speaker 2: start with this Iowa poe from Seltzer and Co. Now,
Speaker 2: Iowa's a weird one, right. Iowa has has gone read
Speaker 2: pretty consistently the past two years, although twenty twenty was
Speaker 2: closer than twenty sixteen. In twenty twenty, Trump won the
Speaker 2: state by fifty three point one percent to Biden's forty
Speaker 2: four point nine percent. But the numbers right now are
Speaker 2: much much worse for Biden. Not good, No, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's pretty bad. Trum Trump is leading Biden in the
Speaker 2: general election in Iowa by eighteen percentage points, and third
Speaker 2: party candidates, including Kennedy and the libertarian candidate Chase Oliver,
Speaker 2: are receiving a combined fifteen percent support. It's it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been this bad in a while. Now. People
Speaker 2: like to use this specific Iowa poll as kind of
Speaker 2: a barometer for the Midwest in general, and that's, you know,
Speaker 2: not completely accurate all the time, but it is something
Speaker 2: that people do consistently point to as a general barometer
Speaker 2: for Trump's possible success in the Midwest. Now we have
Speaker 2: Yes Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Day because one of the most probably the most viable
Speaker 1: path to Biden winning involves holding that quote unquote blue firewall,
Speaker 1: which doesn't include Iowa obviously, it does include Michigan and Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: both of which are generally within the margin of error
Speaker 1: in most polls but looking very sketchy for Biden compared
Speaker 1: to how he would like them to be at this point.
Speaker 2: Wisconsin's not looking great. Minnesota, according to a Survey USA
Speaker 2: poll from just a few days ago, Biden is up
Speaker 2: six points.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, Michigan is I think the one I was
Speaker 1: saying is a little closer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's kind of the situation with this poll.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to get into any of the
Speaker 2: more specific numbers because the numbers in this Iowa poll
Speaker 2: are going to be actually pretty reminiscent of more more
Speaker 2: of the general election numbers which we're going to get into,
Speaker 2: especially when we're going to start factoring in things like
Speaker 2: the conviction and Trump's popularity among independence, which could very
Speaker 2: well be a major deciding factor in this election. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote from Forbes here. Quote. Trump leads
Speaker 2: Biden by one point fifty to forty nine percent in
Speaker 2: a CBS poll released Sunday that comes after a streak
Speaker 2: of surveys found Trump's lead has slipped since his felony
Speaker 2: conviction Manhattan last month, including a Fox News survey released Wednesday,
Speaker 2: the nineteenth that shows Biden up by two points, a
Speaker 2: three point swing since the network's May survey. This was
Speaker 2: among a streak of five polls since mid June that
Speaker 2: show Biden beating or tied with Trump unquote. So Biden
Speaker 2: has made some considerable progress in the polls in the
Speaker 2: past month. Biden and Trump are now tied in the
Speaker 2: Morning Consults Weekly survey, as Biden has now been leading
Speaker 2: Trump by a point in for two weeks in a row.
Speaker 2: A month prior, Trump was way way ahead of Biden,
Speaker 2: and the two are also tied in the Economist YouGov
Speaker 2: survey released last Thursday, as well as a PBST Marrist
Speaker 2: pull from Tuesday the eighteenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a couple of things. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: it's easy to say that's probably due to the conviction,
Speaker 1: because that's the biggest thing that's happened since then. But
Speaker 1: I also think there's a decent chance that some of
Speaker 1: that is just the result of the fact that Trump
Speaker 1: is now definitely the nominee, which was a little more
Speaker 1: up in the air previously, so now people are kind
Speaker 1: of forced to consider what that really means. But it
Speaker 1: does seem in general like there's been motion and like
Speaker 1: things have been moving in Biden's favor since the conviction.
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's wrong to say that probably
Speaker 1: overall the evidence suggests helps Biden at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the Fox News survey is really interesting because
Speaker 2: they have this They have it on a graph here,
Speaker 2: and you can see Biden steadily moving upwards on the
Speaker 2: graph very consistently, and Trump has largely flatlined. If not
Speaker 2: is actually kind of moving a little bit down. Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior is also moving quite down. Yeah, not completely
Speaker 2: surprising considering the whole brain brainworms thing.
Speaker 1: He's going to be the most interesting thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: not the most interesting thing, because whether or not Trump
Speaker 1: wins could mean whether or not we are able to
Speaker 1: continue doing what we do. But RFK is kind of
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing for me in terms of like,
Speaker 1: are is it going to Is there going to be
Speaker 1: any kind of evidence that there's actually real hunger for
Speaker 1: a third party which everyone keeps talking about. Is this
Speaker 1: constant topic of discussion in US politics, but it never happens,
Speaker 1: and people were getting very RFK is obviously a bad
Speaker 1: guy to pin your hopes on a viable third party on,
Speaker 1: but I am interested to see if if it because
Speaker 1: there's a decent evidence that the primary chunk because when
Speaker 1: you factor in RFK, Biden's lead doesn't go down, right,
Speaker 1: because RFK is really popular among a lot of the
Speaker 1: independence that Trump is already strong with. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: the big question is like, is he going to drain
Speaker 1: votes from Trump or just kind of fizzle out? And
Speaker 1: I think right now the smart money is kind of
Speaker 1: on fizzling out. But it's it's a little hard to say.
Speaker 2: Do you know what we can say for sure?
Speaker 1: Though, Robert that uh, Robert F. Kennedy Junior is the
Speaker 1: primary sponsor of this podcast.
Speaker 2: God, I hope, so, I hope, I really hope we
Speaker 2: start getting some RFK ads on here.
Speaker 1: Look, folks, if you if you're not sure whether or
Speaker 1: not you want to vote for RFK, we get it.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously it's a this is a big choice.
Speaker 1: But our recommendation is head down to the Gulf of
Speaker 1: Galveston and shove your head in that in that Texas
Speaker 1: coast water, get a couple of amibas rattling around on
Speaker 1: that brainy ores, and then see how you feel about
Speaker 1: our FK Junior. You know, all right, we are back.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about independence, because this voting
Speaker 2: block will basically be the deciding factor in this whole election.
Speaker 2: So that PBS Marrist poll that found Trump and Biden
Speaker 2: tied also found that Trump has lost six points with
Speaker 2: independence compared to their poll taken just before his conviction
Speaker 2: last May, and Biden has gained eight points with independence
Speaker 2: and now leads Trump by two points in that category.
Speaker 2: And Similarly, the Fox poll also shows Biden leading by
Speaker 2: nine points among Independence.
Speaker 1: And that's a massive, like shift. That's enough of a
Speaker 1: shift that I wonder how much polling methodology maybe to
Speaker 1: explain for it, Like were they just pulling these people?
Speaker 1: Were they pulling them badly before? Or are they pulling
Speaker 1: them badly now? Because that's that's quite a lot of movement.
Speaker 2: We'll talk a little bit about pulling methodology here at
Speaker 2: the end, because it might. Yeah, it is, certainly the
Speaker 2: polling methodology produces a large degree of the numbers. A
Speaker 2: lot of these polls have a margin of error of
Speaker 2: about three point five percent, but this this finding is
Speaker 2: consistent across almost every single poll being done right now.
Speaker 2: A political Ipsos poll from mid June found that thirty
Speaker 2: two percent of Independence say they are now less likely
Speaker 2: to support Trump after his conviction, with twenty one percent
Speaker 2: saying it would be an important factor in their vote.
Speaker 1: Yep, and I did. This is the kind when we
Speaker 1: were taught would talk in the group chat before the conviction.
Speaker 1: I would. I made a note a couple of times
Speaker 1: of the fact that there's a sizeable number of Americans
Speaker 1: who are not what you'd call high information voters but
Speaker 1: just feel really gross about voting for a felon. And
Speaker 1: I think these are the kind of people who are
Speaker 1: independence a lot of the times. They're not people who
Speaker 1: think much about politics. They're people who make.
Speaker 2: The most part of him typically yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And they can kind of make a swing,
Speaker 1: gut decision on either of these guys in a moment.
Speaker 1: And if you tell well, he's a felon, that matters
Speaker 1: to some people. There's like the this frustrates a lot
Speaker 1: of like high information political analysts, the fact that so
Speaker 1: many Americans kind of like make almost random decisions like
Speaker 1: the slip of a coid calls about what to do, but.
Speaker 2: Which is also what makes polling very hard. Is right,
Speaker 2: But all polls also indicate that this will probably be
Speaker 2: a much closer election than twenty twenties, and in an
Speaker 2: election this close, small shifts among independents could very well
Speaker 2: determine the outcome. Now, I'm going to quote from that
Speaker 2: Political Episos report on their own poll quote quote a
Speaker 2: plurality respondence. In our poll, thirty eight percent reported that
Speaker 2: Trump's conviction would have no impact on their likelihood to
Speaker 2: support Trump for president. Thirty three percent of respondent said
Speaker 2: that the conviction made them less likely to support Trump,
Speaker 2: while only seventeen percent said it made them more likely.
Speaker 2: These results were worse for Trunk. Among respondents who said
Speaker 2: they were political independents, thirty two percent said that the
Speaker 2: conviction made them less likely to support and only twelve
Speaker 2: said that it made them more likely to support Trump unquote.
Speaker 2: And that same poll also found that nine percent of
Speaker 2: Republicans say they're now less likely to support Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is massive, and that that actually makes me
Speaker 1: want to bring up one of the guys the analysts
Speaker 1: I've been reading, because this is actually the extent that
Speaker 1: there's any real basis behind my twenty nine percent chance
Speaker 1: things work out. Basically, like twenty twenty one, it's this this,
Speaker 1: this fucking dude Helmet Norpoth norpoth Is. He's one of
Speaker 1: these guys who's built a model, Like you get these
Speaker 1: every now and then, like because they're great content for
Speaker 1: TV news. Dudes like, oh, this guy's got a model
Speaker 1: predict the election. His model predicted the last forty elections properly,
Speaker 1: even though they like ran them through after we knew
Speaker 1: how the elections were going to go. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how fair that is. Helmet actually did accurately predict
Speaker 1: a couple of like the last he's had his model
Speaker 1: going the primary model for like the last seven elections,
Speaker 1: and it predicted five of them correctly. Now, one it
Speaker 1: got right was twenty sixteen, although it predicted how Trump
Speaker 1: was going to win wrong, it got that he was
Speaker 1: going to win right. I don't know how much credence
Speaker 1: you want to give that. And he fucked up in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, although you know the fact that there was
Speaker 1: a pandemic, then I'll give him a little bit of grace.
Speaker 1: The other one he fucked up was twenty was two thousand,
Speaker 1: but he called it. He called it for Gore. So yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and I'll read from his website describing like how this
Speaker 1: works because it's relevant to what you're talking about in
Speaker 1: terms of independent voters, and it's also relevant to what
Speaker 1: I think is another major factor and who's going to
Speaker 1: ultimately when, which is likely voters versus like correct If
Speaker 1: I feel like it, I'll vote because Biden's lead jumps
Speaker 1: substantially when you consider likely voters correct, whereas Trump does
Speaker 1: very well with like maybe voters. And I kind of
Speaker 1: don't feel like this is going to be a high
Speaker 1: turnout election, right, That's that's what I am seeing.
Speaker 2: We have some data on this that I'll talk about later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and Helmet's model works that way. So quote,
Speaker 1: the primary model gives President Joe Biden a seventy five
Speaker 1: percent chance to defeat Donald Trump in November. This forecast
Speaker 1: takes account of the performance of the two candidates in
Speaker 1: the early primaries. Biden won the Democratic contest in those
Speaker 1: states by far larger margins than tru in Republican once.
Speaker 1: What also benefits Biden and the general election is an
Speaker 1: electoral cycle that fits the sitting president in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: A White House incumbent facing no significant challenge in primaries
Speaker 1: almost always wins reelection. As for the electoral college, the
Speaker 1: most likely outcome of the twenty twenty four election predicted
Speaker 1: by the model is that Biden will get three fifteen
Speaker 1: and Trump two two three And basically, so part of
Speaker 1: why I think this guy's probably a hack, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting is he's looking at how they performed
Speaker 1: relative to each other in their primaries and could there's
Speaker 1: a degree to which you can say, like, well, primaries
Speaker 1: are absolutely not general elections. But what it does show
Speaker 1: is relative how much Trump's support has faded from Republicans,
Speaker 1: and Trump actually did considerably less well in the primaries
Speaker 1: than he did in twenty twenty. Right totally, there was
Speaker 1: a degree of actual like hunger to vote for Kerry Lake,
Speaker 1: whom I think is the Arizona right candidate who was
Speaker 1: running a gagainst him, and he showed weakness in a
Speaker 1: number of primary states that was not there in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: which suggests, along with the polling you showed, you know
Speaker 1: that like nine percent of Republicans are less likely to
Speaker 1: vote from after the conviction, an amount of weakness in
Speaker 1: his base that could be pretty meaningful when we get
Speaker 1: to the election. And I don't think it's been taken
Speaker 1: into account enough by, for example, folks on the left
Speaker 1: looking at how much everybody hates Joe Biden, which is
Speaker 1: also a very real factor. But I think that people
Speaker 1: are kind of denying the degree to which a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who should be his base don't like Trump anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is one of the weird things. Post
Speaker 2: to conviction, there were some pundits who were trying to
Speaker 2: make an argument that somehow the conviction would actually make
Speaker 2: Trump a more popular choice, which maybe works if you're
Speaker 2: like a contrarian, but it doesn't really make much sense.
Speaker 2: And if you look at like the approval ratings for
Speaker 2: the conviction and the verdict, they fall pretty pretty well
Speaker 2: on party lines. It's really going to come down to independence.
Speaker 2: And like everyone who's going to vote for Trump, who
Speaker 2: like really really really want to vote for Trump, are
Speaker 2: still going to vote for Trump, right, Like that's that's
Speaker 2: that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not, and they will buy the I'm voting for
Speaker 1: a felon hats that Facebook keeps trying to sell.
Speaker 2: Mate absolutely right, Like, those are not the people that
Speaker 2: are in question, but there is a large number of
Speaker 2: other people who do not own a mega hat who
Speaker 2: are actually, you know, questionable in who they're going to
Speaker 2: vote for. On this note, I'd like to like to
Speaker 2: quote again from Forbes quote. Polls consistently show the conviction
Speaker 2: is a low priority for most voters in deciding who
Speaker 2: to actually cast their ballot for. The political Ipsos poll
Speaker 2: found that fifty three percent said it's not important, so
Speaker 2: that it's not important to their voting decision, while sixty
Speaker 2: one percent in a Reuter's full released last week said
Speaker 2: it won't impact their vote unquote. Now, one of the
Speaker 2: clearer shifts that we have seen post verdict is a
Speaker 2: sizable increase in Biden voters who list stopping Trump as
Speaker 2: one of their main reasons to do so. This we
Speaker 2: have numbers from March to now, is that the main
Speaker 2: reason for supporting Biden. In March, we had forty seven
Speaker 2: percent saying it's to oppose Trump. Now it's fifty four
Speaker 2: percent saying it's to oppost Trump. Which I think that
Speaker 2: number will only increase the closer we get to the election,
Speaker 2: because people don't want Trump to be president again, even
Speaker 2: though they don't like Biden.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 2: The other thing with these numbers is that the percent
Speaker 2: of people who say I like Biden as reason for
Speaker 2: supporting him has decreased since March. Yes, yes, it's decreased
Speaker 2: by four percent.
Speaker 1: Of course, because he's not likable and he's he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be president still. But Trump is even like and people
Speaker 1: understand like I that is the number one thing. When
Speaker 1: I go out of like my the bubble of my
Speaker 1: friends and whatnot and talk to family members or just
Speaker 1: like have conversations with right like uber drivers or whatnot
Speaker 1: about politics, I have not heard a single person state
Speaker 1: a reason for vote. They want to vote for Biden.
Speaker 1: That is more important than I don't want Trump to
Speaker 1: be president. That is everyone that I encounter basically like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm obviously you have other people, but it is
Speaker 1: weird to the extent to which that's what this election
Speaker 1: is going to come down on. And I kind of
Speaker 1: think it's evidence that of a failure and strategy in
Speaker 1: Trump's part, because I think he probably could do better
Speaker 1: if he were to focus on allaying those fears that
Speaker 1: he wants to become a dictator as opposed to harping
Speaker 1: on like one of the things that's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: He's campaigning very heavily in Wisconsin right now. He's already
Speaker 1: made like two visits just to southeast Wisconsin in the
Speaker 1: last two months. Because Wisconsin is up for grabs right
Speaker 1: Every poll I've seen basically is within margin of air.
Speaker 1: It's either guy's game, and it's a critical state. And
Speaker 1: Trump is hammering Biden on crime in Wisconsin right like,
Speaker 1: look at how your dims have done, look at how
Speaker 1: much more violent this city's become. And about one percent
Speaker 1: of registered voters in Wisconsin consider crime a major concern
Speaker 1: and a presidential election. And part of that's because, like,
Speaker 1: violent crime has dropped and like massively in Wisconsin and
Speaker 1: wide over the last year. And I do wonder the
Speaker 1: extent to which, because Americans views on crime are not
Speaker 1: based on how bad crime actually is. But I also
Speaker 1: wonder if people are start like the degree to which
Speaker 1: that's a voting concern for people is fading because it
Speaker 1: has dropped so much. And I'll be curious to see
Speaker 1: if kind of Trump's strategy of hammering the Democrats because
Speaker 1: they're bad on crime is going to prove to be
Speaker 1: a serious misstep.
Speaker 2: Well, even Fox News has had to do recent segments
Speaker 2: talking about how there actually has been a drop in crime,
Speaker 2: even though Americans feel like it hasn't, which is a
Speaker 2: quite funny little tidbit. We're all looking for the guy
Speaker 2: who did this moment. Now, I do want to get
Speaker 2: through a few more conviction numbers. I'm going to quote
Speaker 2: from Politicalist report on their own poll regarding the importance
Speaker 2: of the conviction and people's vote. Quote, twenty two percent
Speaker 2: of respondents said the conviction is important to how they
Speaker 2: will vote and that it will make them less likely
Speaker 2: to support Trump. Only six percent of respondents took the
Speaker 2: other out of the question, saying they are more likely
Speaker 2: to support a nearly identical net negative effect showed up
Speaker 2: among independents, with twenty one percent saying they are less
Speaker 2: likely to support and five percent saying they are more
Speaker 2: likely unquote now. Of those who say the conviction is
Speaker 2: important to how they will vote, seven percent of Republicans
Speaker 2: say they are less likely to support Trump. So that's
Speaker 2: an interesting number, and only thirteen percent say they are
Speaker 2: more likely, and like, come on, those people were always
Speaker 2: going to vote for Trump anyway. Forty percent of Democrats,
Speaker 2: of course, say that they are less likely now. Twenty
Speaker 2: eight percent of Republicans say that the conviction makes them
Speaker 2: more likely to support Trump, but it won't affect their vote,
Speaker 2: and among those who said the conviction isn't important to
Speaker 2: how they will vote, forty percent said that it has
Speaker 2: basically no impact on their support of Trump. Most those
Speaker 2: people are independents now. Political also asked respondents if they
Speaker 2: thought the prosecution was brought to help Joe Biden, and
Speaker 2: most around fifty one percent disagree with the claim, but
Speaker 2: forty three percent agreed and said that the case had
Speaker 2: probably been been brought to help Biden, and these results
Speaker 2: are roughly similar among Independence, so still most people don't
Speaker 2: think so, and there's people who have, you know, suspicions,
Speaker 2: not not super surprising.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Political notes that these figures might be movable, though these
Speaker 2: are not necessarily locked down opinions as quote roughly a
Speaker 2: third of all responders and Independence said that they still
Speaker 2: do not understand the details of the case well unquote,
Speaker 2: so glorious that those are not really set in stone.
Speaker 2: And Political also notes that there's a number of upcoming
Speaker 2: events and variables that could change of the public's opinion
Speaker 2: before November, you know, including all of the ongoing efforts
Speaker 2: by political operatives to influence people, the public perception of
Speaker 2: both the conviction and just you know, the election in general.
Speaker 1: The debates obviously too.
Speaker 2: The debates as well as Trump's sentencing in Manhattan on
Speaker 2: July eleventh, which could possibly you know, entail a period
Speaker 2: of incarceration. Probably not, but if it did, would that
Speaker 2: would certainly impact impact these numbers. And also Manhattan Dish
Speaker 2: Attorney Alvin Bragg's testimony before Congress on July twelfth, This
Speaker 2: could impact the numbers you know regarding you know, how
Speaker 2: many people think this case is legit versus how much
Speaker 2: people think is just purely like a political move. But
Speaker 2: still about half of adults do approve of Trump's conviction.
Speaker 2: The AP did a poll with the NORC a week
Speaker 2: after Trump's conviction, but before Hunter Biden was convicted on
Speaker 2: that federal gun case, and US also seems more likely
Speaker 2: to support Trump's conviction than they are to disapprove, with
Speaker 2: at least forty eight percent saying they approve and just
Speaker 2: twenty nine somewhat or strongly disapproving and twenty one you know,
Speaker 2: not approving or disapproving, to quote from the AP, Republicans
Speaker 2: are less united on the verdict than Democrats, Roughly six
Speaker 2: and ten Republicans disapprove, while fifteen percent approve. The other
Speaker 2: two and ten and neither approve nor disapprove. Overall, opinions
Speaker 2: on Trump have barely budged. About six and ten US
Speaker 2: adults have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, just in line
Speaker 2: from our fine In a poll conducted last February, four
Speaker 2: in ten have a favorable view of Trump when also
Speaker 2: largely unchanged since February. The numbers are equally poor for Biden.
Speaker 2: For in ten US adults have a favorable view of
Speaker 2: the Democratic president, while six and ten have a negative
Speaker 2: one unquote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is very much unique in races that I
Speaker 1: can recall a race to the bottom, like who can
Speaker 1: alienate who will alienate less of the base?
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, we polls consistently are showing that there
Speaker 2: will be historically that there is historically low voter enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: Both candidates have very low favorability ratings, and an NBC
Speaker 2: poll found that sixty four percent of voters say that
Speaker 2: they are very interested in this year's election, which is
Speaker 2: a twenty year low, so, you know, not great numbers.
Speaker 2: And a new CBS poll found that among young Americans
Speaker 2: who did vote in twenty twenty, only three quarters to
Speaker 2: say that they'll definitely do so again. Now this this
Speaker 2: poll also does know that Trump's support among young voters
Speaker 2: has been almost unchanged since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got done about two percent better, which is
Speaker 1: fairly minimal considering how much Biden's lead is among that group.
Speaker 2: But overall, young voters do believe generally progressive values pretty consistently,
Speaker 2: including support for a ceasefire.
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, part of the reason why we
Speaker 1: may not see which you could be catastrophic for Biden
Speaker 1: because twenty twenty, a lot of his win came in
Speaker 1: the fact that he did deliver so much of that,
Speaker 1: like so many young voters came out, turnout was so high,
Speaker 1: and they overwhelmingly supported Biden. There is also, i mean,
Speaker 1: kind of a reason why that might not wind up mattering,
Speaker 1: which is where Biden I mentioned earlier. Biden does really
Speaker 1: well among likely voters, much better than he does among
Speaker 1: the general electorate. And this is part of a shift
Speaker 1: among white voters with degrees that has been We get
Speaker 1: a lot of talk and this has been significant, especially
Speaker 1: like Latino voters shifting to ourswards. The GOP has been
Speaker 1: a really important story too, but this one does not
Speaker 1: get talked about as much. In the four years since
Speaker 1: Biden took office, white men with degrees have shifted twenty
Speaker 1: four points towards Biden, and he has gained nineteen points
Speaker 1: among white women with degrees, which is like a huge
Speaker 1: amount of his support. And also that's one of the
Speaker 1: groups that's likeliest to vote. Like the strength that Biden
Speaker 1: has gained among kind of middle of the road leaning
Speaker 1: conservative suburban voters is potentially going to be a de
Speaker 1: sider in this election.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and according to The New York Times and Sienna,
Speaker 2: the polls do seem slightly skewed in Trump's favor actually
Speaker 2: this year, mostly by disenfranchised voters who may not participate
Speaker 2: in the upcoming election. And analysis they did found that
Speaker 2: Biden had led the last three of their polls among
Speaker 2: twenty twenty voters, but trailed among registered voters overall, which
Speaker 2: is basically exactly what you're.
Speaker 1: Saying, you know, Garrison, speaking of likely voters are I
Speaker 1: don't know, that doesn't really lead in here's the fucking ads. Look,
Speaker 1: you don't get you don't get a good one. Every
Speaker 1: time we do this, folks, there's too.
Speaker 2: Many more are likely to listen to these ads. They're fine,
Speaker 2: So we are back. Is polling actually useful? Is this
Speaker 2: actually useful anymore? The answer is kinda. But you know,
Speaker 2: people have gotten really really anti polling in recent years.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the twenty sixteen elections certainly contributed to that,
Speaker 2: although if you look at the actual twenty sixteen polls,
Speaker 2: it's kind of it's kind of interesting. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: Clinton generally pulled much higher than Trump for the duration
Speaker 2: of the race. Though in late July the two were
Speaker 2: neck and neck, with the with the gap closing once
Speaker 2: again in late September and the week of the election,
Speaker 2: Trump was on average trailing by less than three point
Speaker 2: five percent behind, which is often in the margin of
Speaker 2: they are for these polls and posters usually consider something
Speaker 2: under three percent being a toss up. Now this is
Speaker 2: three point five percent, so still is it was trending
Speaker 2: towards Clinton, and there is reasons why in terms of
Speaker 2: their polling methodology that was flawed. But the polls were
Speaker 2: actually a bit closer than I think what public perception
Speaker 2: seems to remember of the twenty sixteen polls.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this is a part of why the public
Speaker 1: memory of twenty sixteen and to an extent, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and to an extent every election is so bad. Is
Speaker 1: you can't emphasize this enough. People are dogshit and understanding
Speaker 1: what poles say, right. They are really bad at understanding uncertainty.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I hate to keep going
Speaker 1: back to the Nate silver Well, but I think he's
Speaker 1: a fascinating case study. And one of the things he
Speaker 1: pointed out after twenty sixteen the minute you have a
Speaker 1: forecast where there's less certainty. People don't like that. The
Speaker 1: minute you have a forecast that doesn't have a Democrat winning,
Speaker 1: they don't like that very much. And it's to point out,
Speaker 1: like his he kind of started to become a heel
Speaker 1: as soon as he started showing that like Trump had
Speaker 1: a real shot at winning, and as his forecast continue
Speaker 1: to show kind of weakness among Democrats, it got people
Speaker 1: angrier and angrier. And that's most of what makes people
Speaker 1: determine whether or not something is a credible source on
Speaker 1: the election. And that's kind of why a lot of
Speaker 1: this is like a doomed effort, is because people consider,
Speaker 1: you know, an expert credible if they are saying something
Speaker 1: they want to hear, because most of what people want
Speaker 1: in terms of election polling is to feel reassured that
Speaker 1: things are going to be okay, right, and that's that's
Speaker 1: your kind of It's always like a confirmation bias game.
Speaker 1: And it's also one of those things where like the
Speaker 1: instant you do well, if you are legitimately a rigorous,
Speaker 1: you know, expert, and you predict things correctly, you're going
Speaker 1: to suddenly be this focus of so much media attention
Speaker 1: and have so much money and job offers thrown your
Speaker 1: way that it will inherently drive you mad, which is
Speaker 1: part of why again, I am predicting a twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent chance that things are basically the way they were
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, so I can get all that sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet CNN money, you know, if I wind up being right.
Speaker 1: I am curious Garrison kind of in that line, because
Speaker 1: as our official poll expert, you kind of came into this,
Speaker 1: I don't think with a strong set of biases about
Speaker 1: what would happen when you actually started drilling down into
Speaker 1: the numbers. Did that change it all your impression of
Speaker 1: what was going on this election?
Speaker 2: I think I thought that the numbers for Biden would
Speaker 2: be slightly worse. I think that's kind of the general feeling,
Speaker 2: and that has been you know, what the numbers have
Speaker 2: kind of looked like in my cursory glances the past
Speaker 2: few months. But looking more into kind of polling science,
Speaker 2: what these pollsters are are saying the gap is usually
Speaker 2: within this three percent, that it feels like it's going
Speaker 2: to be a very close election. It'll be much closer
Speaker 2: than it was in twenty twenty. Poles thought that twenty
Speaker 2: twenty would be a much, much more obvious win for Biden.
Speaker 2: It was, it was it was a closer election than
Speaker 2: what people thought. But this I think will be even
Speaker 2: even closer. So gonna it's gonna be a tricky one.
Speaker 2: We're going to be kind of on the edge of
Speaker 2: our seat come from election night, which is what no
Speaker 2: one wants to hear, right, No, especially since you have this,
Speaker 2: You have a lot of people who want to hear
Speaker 2: Biden is doomed because they have, for generally good reasons,
Speaker 2: come to despise Biden over the last totally years, and
Speaker 2: they just want to know that like the things they're
Speaker 2: angry about matter.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I all I can say to
Speaker 1: those people is like, I don't know that anything matters,
Speaker 1: and I do think there's a really good chance. I
Speaker 1: think this is basically a coin flip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think you know, polling is is going
Speaker 2: to look very different this year because Trump is not
Speaker 2: the incumbent. I think there's a lot of other factors
Speaker 2: that are contributing to the polls, and pollsters have adjusted
Speaker 2: a lot since twenty sixteen to make sure that more
Speaker 2: Trump support is accounted for both in twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen. The error did not come from overestimating
Speaker 2: the support of Clinton and Biden. It came from underestimating
Speaker 2: Trump's support. And this has been fixed fixed for via
Speaker 2: a number a number of methods. You know, there's certain
Speaker 2: theories people have had, like the quote unquote shy Trump
Speaker 2: voter theory, which is kind of largely disputed, saying that
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: People certainly by this fucking point.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, saying that people who like support Trump are
Speaker 2: too scared to tell polsters that they support Trump. Quite
Speaker 2: quite silly. It's essentially it's essentially blaming, blaming, like pull
Speaker 2: errors on people just lying to pollsters because they're too nervous. So,
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's a lot of other stuff we have.
Speaker 2: We have adjusted for white, non college educated voters, you know,
Speaker 2: because people who have a college degree are more likely
Speaker 2: to respond to polls. So all this does get adjusted for,
Speaker 2: especially since twenty sixteen, because that was the main cause
Speaker 2: of the polls kind of being fucked up that year.
Speaker 2: So what exactly happened in twenty twenty Then if these
Speaker 2: things like the non college vote and the shy Trump
Speaker 2: voter theory were sort of adjusted for, well, a few
Speaker 2: things happened. The pandemic one, you know, made certain pulling
Speaker 2: figures a little bit unique. The election also featured the
Speaker 2: highest number of voter turnout in decades, something that we're
Speaker 2: probably not expected to see in twenty twenty four. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, the national polls were too favorable to Biden
Speaker 2: by three point nine points, state polls by four point
Speaker 2: three I'm going to read a report from the American
Speaker 2: Association for Public Opinion Research analyzing twenty twenty election poll errors. Quote.
Speaker 2: If the voter's most supportive of Trump were least likely
Speaker 2: to participate in polls, then the polling error may be
Speaker 2: explained as follows. Self identified Republicans who choose to respond
Speaker 2: to polls are more likely to support Democrats, and those
Speaker 2: who choose not to respond to polls are more likely
Speaker 2: to support Republicans. Even if the correct percentage of self
Speaker 2: identified Republicans were pulled, differences in their publicans who did
Speaker 2: and did not respond could produce the observed polling error unquote.
Speaker 2: If this was indeed the issue, it was probably made
Speaker 2: worse by Trump and twenty twenty by being very disparaging
Speaker 2: to polls, making his base probably less likely to honestly
Speaker 2: engage with polling metrics, and both in twenty sixteen and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty there was large, large post mortems among the
Speaker 2: polling community trying to figure out how to improve, and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two's polls were more accurate than any election
Speaker 2: since nineteen ninety eight, with almost no bias towards either party.
Speaker 2: So that is a good side in terms of the
Speaker 2: accuracy of polls.
Speaker 1: This not being nonsense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, So a poster named Nathaniel Rackitch said, quote,
Speaker 2: pollsterry utility isn't telling us who will win, but rather
Speaker 2: in roughly how close a race is and therefore how
Speaker 2: confident we should be in the outcome. Historically, candidate's leading
Speaker 2: polls by at least twenty points have won in ninety
Speaker 2: nine percent of the time, but candidate's leading polls made
Speaker 2: less than three points have won just fifty five percent
Speaker 2: of the time unquote, And that kind of lines up
Speaker 2: with our current situation, right. Biden was even though the
Speaker 2: polls were slightly skewed towards Biden in twenty twenty, he
Speaker 2: was so far ahead that most of the polls in
Speaker 2: terms of saying who would win, we're still correct because
Speaker 2: Biden was just so far ahead this time. That will
Speaker 2: not be the case. That's not that's not what the
Speaker 2: poles are going to say. The polls are going to
Speaker 2: show this being a much closer race, and that I
Speaker 2: think that is what it's going to be come come November.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's kind of that's kind of the low
Speaker 2: down of the current the current polling situation. I'll be
Speaker 2: curious to see, you know, what the numbers are post
Speaker 2: debate and especially after the sentencing in July.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see. And I should note that Nate Silver
Speaker 1: just released his official forecast today and it's it's almost
Speaker 1: the opposite of that weird German man who gave Biden
Speaker 1: a seventy five percent chance of winning. Nate gives Trump
Speaker 1: a sixty five percent chance of winning. So we are
Speaker 1: going to see which of the election pundits who make
Speaker 1: their entire living off of gambling on elections winds up
Speaker 1: getting to be feted on all of the talk shows
Speaker 1: in like January of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That'll be.
Speaker 2: That's so you'll toss up.
Speaker 1: Honestly, that's thereal'll toss up. It's Helmet versus Nate, Baby,
Speaker 1: who's gonna win? I kind of think they both might
Speaker 1: be common.
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