I agree in terms of when Trump himself is on the ballot. When he is not, the polls tend to be accurate and the republicans tend to lose with the democrats even over-performing. Recent special elections have demonstrated this.

Relative to the polls, republicans over-performed in 2016, lost in 2018, over-performed but still lost in 2020, and underperformed in 2022. To me, it looks like Trump is the anomaly.

So, you are absolutely correct that Trump beats the polls when he is on the ballot. Personally, I usually give Trump an extra 4 points and this is why I am so concerned about the upcoming election. Polling his actual support seems to be almost impossible.

The things that the democrats have working in their favor are related to reproductive rights; Dobbs energized a lot of women to be reliable voters against republicans.

However, Trump’s 34 felony convictions seem to have had the opposite effect where he actually got a bump in the polls! This is yet another situation where Trump is an anomaly, because even just one felony conviction would have been more than enough to end any other politician’s political career.

It remains to be seen whether the battle over reproductive rights is enough to overcome Trump’s ability to defy the polls. Obviously, I hope it is but I personally will not let myself get complacent when it comes to Trump (I made that mistake in 2016!)