Why, according to the polls, is the race so tight?

[RipVanWinkle]

This race shouldn't be tight. Harris is obviously the better candidate.

Thoughts?

[Dennis Donovan]

1. I'm not doing polls...

Almost every poll I see defies conventional wisdom.

What I watch are GOP lawsuits and ballot tricks. This will no doubt be fought in the courts.

[TwilightZone]

2. For the same reason 2016 and 2020 were close.

Trump's floor is relatively stable and pretty much always has been. Contrary to popular opinion, he doesn't seem to ever lose much support, certainly not a significant amount. Anyone he was going to turn off, he turned off years ago.

The good news is that his ceiling isn't much higher than the floor, so turnout is going to be the key, as it always is. We just need to show up in larger numbers than his supporters in the swing states.

[jcgoldie]

3. it may not be tight

polling depends on models. Who they think will vote. Where polls matter is trends. If the same poll goes in some direction thats a good indication. Over the last months the trends are in our favor in the good and the bad polls.

[PhilosopherKing]

4. Easy

Lots of selfish, ignorant Americans.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. First thought:

Current polling is of little to no predictive value.

Essential reading:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-25-polling-imperilment/

Also, we are at the beginning of a flood of deeply flawed RW biased polls by little known/unknown polling houses with minimal track records. As in 2022, The sole purpose of these crappy polls is to manipulate polling averages and forecast models, as well as the media narrative.

Don’t be duped by this nonsense.

[RidinWithHarris]

6. You're not answering the real question, which is about the astonishing level of support for Trump

The polls aren't so deeply flawed that they're hiding an oncoming 60-40 win for Harris.

Even a 60-40 win, as ecstatic as we'd be to see that, wouldn't be enough to explain away the mystery here, because four out of ten voters supporting Trump would still be disgusting.

I don't know how to answer the real question myself apart from forming a cynically low opinion of many of my fellow Americans.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. The question was framed as "according to polls, the race is tight"

I answered in that context.

If you’re looking for reasons for why so many support Trump, that’s a deeper social and psychological question with many layers.

[RidinWithHarris]

11. Polls, all that accurate or not, are the only info better than guessing that we currently have

I think the OP is concerned mostly about this being a close race, and not so much about the polls themselves, which are the merely the best proxy we have for discussing the state of the race.

In a healthy democracy Trump would be utterly and completely out of the running at this point. He’s not. That in and of itself makes this a far closer race than it should be.

Since you responded first about predictive power, and then about not letting oneself be “duped”, that’s the real miss-the-point stuff.

This most definitely is a close race. Winning won’t mean it wasn’t a close race. Even getting a big Electoral College win by winning all or most of the battleground states won’t wipe out that this is, and will have been, a close race.

[Amishman]

7. It's more than two candidates, it's two visions of the country

I live in the red part of PA, and my wife's family is very conservative, very large, and very close knit.

Here are my thoughts based on my observations.

There are two competing visions of our country.

One is secular, multi-cultural, and welcoming of non-traditional values and identities. It is a global citizen, with responsibilities to the world and humanity as a whole. Government plays a strong role in encouraging and stimulating economic equality, and the role of government is seen as a helping hand.

The other is (loosely) Christian, with 20th century rooted values (at best) and strongly nationalistic. It views the greater world not as partners and friends but as competitors and enemies. Government is seen as an inept and barely tolerated necessity, one whose reach and influence is to be minimized domestically.

A huge chunk of this country either just doesn't want option 1, and/or actively wants option 2.

This matches what I see with my extended family, almost all of whom will be voting trump. With two exceptions, none of them actually like Trump much, but they are dead set against our party and what we are trying to accomplish. In other words, they're more interested in voting against any Democrat than voting for Trump specifically.

I'll add the two biggest things that set them off and gets a nasty political rant out of them.

The first is any mention of transgenderism and any reference to non-binary genders. (gay and lesbians are definitely more tolerated).

The other is immigration - and I'm not just talking undocumented. They aggressively do not want people coming here speaking other languages and having different cultures.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

9. Yep - the immigration thing is big with them.

[groundloop]

10. BINGO.... and it's damned sad that the US has such a large number of MAGATs

[LexVegas]

12. A significant portion of this country is below average intelligence. nt

[Prairie Gates]

13. ...

[Polybius]

15. I think it's only because Biden exited very late in the game

Had he announced last year that he wasn't running for re-election, Harris (assuming she beat out Gavin and whoever else ran in the primary) would be up by 10 right now.