Summary
Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight has named Vice President Kamala Harris as the narrow favorite to win the presidential race on Election Day, shifting from former President Donald Trump for the first time since October 17.
Harris’s lead is razor-thin, with FiveThirtyEight’s model showing her winning 50 out of 100 simulations compared to Trump’s 49. Similarly, Nate Silver’s model in The Silver Bulletin also slightly favors Harris, giving her a win in 50.015% of cases.
Both forecasts emphasize the unprecedented closeness of this race, with Pennsylvania as a key battleground.
I wouldn’t be surprised if what we learn from this election is how it wasn’t really close at all, and all of the polls were extremely wrong.
I’m basing this on the fact that more newly registered voters are voting this election than in decades, and all of the polls only account for “likely voters“ based on their registration and party affiliation without taking into account all of the new voters. Most of the new voters are likely to vote Democratic.
There have been a few articles on “herding” which I didn’t even know about before this election. I am no pollster, but it sounds like there’s a huge incentive to protect the reputation of the polling firm (“it’s a draw, so we can’t be wrong”) vs reporting numbers they think might make news.