Here’s what’s been on my mind about polls for the last year or so…

In 2016, we all know that the national polls were basically accurate, giving Hillary Clinton the popular vote - and she did indeed win the popular vote. But the state polls were off significantly in the states that mattered for that election.

In 2017, with retooled polls, the off-year elections basically matched up with what the pollsters said.

In 2018, the polls predicted a blue wave, and it fully materialized, with Democrats even over-performing.

In 2019, the polls were still pretty accurate, but again, Democrats over-performed in special elections.

In 2020, the polls at all levels except the presidency underestimated Democratic support.

In 2021, the Democrats again over-performed versus the polls.

In 2022, Democrats not only over-performed, they completely obliterated the supposed “red wave” that was supposed to occur that year. It became a pink trickle, with Republicans taking the House by the barest thread, and Democrats unexpectedly increasing their lead in the Senate.

In 2023, Democrats over-performed again in special elections.

In this year’s early special election, Democrats are still over-performing versus the polls.

Democrats have been consistently exceeding the expectations set by polls since around 2018. And I have a hypothesis about it: Pollsters are basically fucked for the time being.

Here’s why:

• Phone polls are getting harder and harder to conduct. Especially with young people, who never answer calls to their cellphones from unknown numbers. So pollsters are relying more and more on the few landlines remaining, and the demographics of those respondents skew conservative. They can only do so much weighting to try to mitigate the problem of oversampling conservatives.
• Online polls and texting polls are improving, but still very hard to conduct in a scientifically rigorous manner.
• Young people are voting. This is a relatively new phenomenon, and the pollsters haven’t yet figured out how to properly predict the voting proclivities - and thus weight the answers - of young people who are much more engaged politically than previous generations.

I’ve held for some time that the polls between Biden and Trump might have anywhere from a four point to a nine point error in Trump’s favor. And that might apply to Harris and Trump as well.

So… Harris has a two-point lead in this poll. If the polling error hasn’t been fixed this cycle - and I don’t think it has - her real lead might be six points. And it might be eleven points.

I think there might be good reason to hope. BUT…

The pollsters might have figured their shit out. Maybe the polling error is fixed. There’s no way to know until the election. And here’s what we need to do: Prove that it’s not fixed yet and make Harris massively over-perform versus the polls. Sweep the motherfuckers out of the House and Senate while you’re at it. Show that the polls since 2017 have continued to underestimate Democratic support, and kick the fucking fascists in the fucking teeth - electorally speaking, of course.

This is just starting. I’m always baffled by just how long it takes news to trickle into polling. You should expect her numbers to continue to gain for any where from two to three weeks out from this week. Most people are utterly tuned out and have been for a while, so it will take time.

A few other considerations as we watch her polling: Harris is getting real grass roots support. This is something Biden never had (barely in 2020, and very much not in 2024). Progressive groups are mobilizing now and the infrastructure is being set up as we speak, but Harris will have real advocacy at a grass-roots starting end of this week, and really coming online in another 2-4 weeks since it takes time to get set up, get volunteers, gets access to the van, etc.