The Washington Post
The 5 - Minute Fix
Amber Phillips
By Amber Phillips
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We’re in the final stretch of the presidential election; both major parties’ conventions have wrapped, and just over 10 weeks remain until Election Day. It’s even harder than in past presidential elections to imagine how the coming weeks will play out, because so much has changed so quickly.
But here are five questions that will help determine the results in November.
1. Who gives people most reason to vote?
All week, I asked Republican and Democratic strategists to finish this sentence: “The candidate who wins the presidential election is the candidate who …” Here are some of their answers:
“Represents change the most.”
“Turns out the largest percentage of their base, including the low-propensity voters.”
“Does a better job at defining their opponent.”
On some of those (like change and enthusiasm), former president Donald Trump has a clear upper hand, though Vice President Kamala Harris is making up the difference. In a recent swing state poll from the New York Times and Siena College, 46 percent of voters say they think Harris will bring about major changes or tear down the system; 80 percent said that of Trump.
Trump’s base has also typically been more passionate about voting than Democrats, though Democrats say that the momentum is now on their side and that abortion rights ballot measures in key states could help change that.
It probably all comes down to who can define their campaign ― and opponent ― in a way that actually gets people excited to vote.
2. What happens when Harris gets more scrutiny?
The Democratic convention on Thursday (Kaitlyn Dolan/The Washington Post)
The Democratic convention on Thursday (Kaitlyn Dolan/The Washington Post)
If she agrees to a major media interview, she could face questions about her changing positions from her first presidential campaign. She’ll have more tough questions in a Sept. 10 debate with Trump, who will relentlessly attack her. And we expect growing pressure for her to lay out in more detail what she’d do as president.
On policy, she struck a clear middle lane this week as she started to share how she’d govern. In her acceptance speech, she said that:
She would sign a national abortion protection law, voting rights legislation that would also ban partisan gerrymandering and a border security bill that would allow her to shut down the border to asylum seekers.
She would defend Ukraine from Russia and find a middle ground that allows Israel to defend itself while “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
She also has plenty of liberal ideas. Last week, she proposed the outlines of an economic plan to try to cut down on high grocery prices (with a tool Republicans say will be too heavy-handed), build more housing, and give tax credits to new home buyers and growing families (that critics say will all cost too much).
3. How does Trump regain his balance?
Trump holding a news conference this month. (Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post)
Trump holding a news conference this month. (Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post)
Harris has thrown Trump off guard. His insults, his false statements just don’t seem to be landing as directly as they did four or certainly eight years ago. As The Washington Post’s chief correspondent Dan Balz writes:
“The Democrats are in the game, the former president is in a box, and it’s not clear whether he knows what to do. Trying to free himself from this bind, Trump has plucked from what was once a tested playbook of tricks that in the past has kept his opponents off-balance and himself at the center of attention. But as the campaign now moves to its next phase, the focus on him and how he attempts to regain his balance will be as much or more of the story compared with how Harris navigates the road ahead.”
4. What happens now that the best-known third-party candidate endorses Trump?
At one point during the campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had the chance to play a significant spoiler to President Joe Biden or Trump, with his positions that appealed to both the far left and far right and an electorate not thrilled with their two main choices.
As his polling has diminished, Kennedy dropped out Friday and endorsed Trump. It’s unclear what that means for Trump. A recent Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll found that with Kennedy factored in, Harris still leads Trump nationally by three percentage points. “Might Kennedy’s voters just stay home?” The Post’s Philip Bump wonders. Or maybe enough of them turn out for Trump to shift things ever so slightly in his favor, which could be enough.
5. Are the polls missing something?
The head of a super PAC for Harris says the group’s polls are “much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public.” Other pollsters caution that their industry still isn’t quite sure how to capture disaffected voters who in the past have been Trump supporters. Polls in 2016, and somewhat in 2020, underestimated his support. (The Post took a very close look at these voters in 2024 before Biden dropped out.)
One example of how uncertain things still are: The key swing state of Michigan is tied right now, according to a Post average of high-quality polls, and Michigan Democrats are warning that their state could still very much go to Trump. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) told Politico that there are neighborhoods in her district with Trump signs “in every yard.”
Polls have never been perfectly accurate, and human beings are complex — and so are their opinions, Scott Clement, the director of polling at The Post, told me recently. That being said, polls are still useful in a variety of ways. They’re the best tool for measuring what the public thinks, “especially when one considers the alternatives: yard signs, crowd sizes and volume of social media posts,” Clement said.
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