Don't Waste Your Time: The 2024 Presidential Polls Are Meaningless

The media often presents simplistic but inflammatory stories in its pursuit of attention-grabbing headlines. In a time of political polarization, nothing is more intriguing than presidential polling reports. Unfortunately, these polls are often nothing more than clickbait, drawing lots of attention from folks on both sides of the political divide and causing unnecessary anguish and worry.
​
With two aged and unappealing candidates lurching toward election day, Americans would prefer a dynamic and inspiring leader who could sharply contrast the candidates and move the country toward an optimistic vision. Instead, the election consists of two candidates locked in a feeble rematch, like a movie franchise at the end of its life. The closeness of the race is directly attributable to this unenviable matchup.

Donald Trump is Back, and This Time No More Mr. Nice Guy

​There are many reasons to disregard polling numbers:

• Poll aggregation, a popular tool, often includes many polls, some of which may be questionable. Averaging such diverse data can lead to a complex and potentially misleading picture of public opinion. This underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of public sentiment, beyond the surface-level numbers.
• The political landscape, a labyrinth of factors, is a fascinating and unpredictable terrain. Figures like Robert Kennedy Jr., who can generate significant interest despite polling numbers that fluctuate from negligible to north of 10%, introduce a thrilling element of unpredictability that can challenge the predictive value of polling data, highlighting the limitations of relying solely on such data.
• With its substantial financial resources, the Biden campaign strategically invested in media buys in crucial markets. This strategic move is not just a move; it's a notable change expected to significantly impact the polling data. This underscores the importance of considering the influence of campaign spending on a candidate's perceived popularity in political analysis and prompts the audience to feel more aware and critical of the factors influencing public opinion.
• Donald Trump's increasing eccentricity is now attracting a great deal of media attention, and this will accelerate as he hits the trail, riffing on his stump speech and littering his trail with unforced errors.
• The upcoming debates will spotlight the cognitive differences between the two candidates of almost identical ancient vintage, to Trump's detriment.
• The swing states, including Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, will play a pivotal role in determining the election outcome. Trump must almost run the table to gain the electoral college majority he needs. As a result, national polling numbers, which do not reflect the unique dynamics of these states, are irrelevant, further emphasizing the need to focus on state-level data.

The United States Supreme Court is in the Balance in the 2024 Election

The noise of simple Presidential polling reports obscures more important election concerns for each party. Control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives is critical to the next administration, regardless of who wins the presidency. The Senate, of course, is responsible for approving nominations to the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The next President will nominate at least two Supreme Court justices and hundreds of federal judges.
​
Two more conservative justices would continue a generational movement toward Christian Nationalist ideals, while two more liberal justices would mean a swing back toward progressive ideals. The election, particularly the Senate majority, is the prize in this election and the most crucial issue in the 2024 election.

Performative MAGA Politicians such as Florida Representative Matt Gaetz Would Love a Solid Majority in 2025

Similarly, the House of Representatives majority is critical to moving forward with any agenda in the next presidential term. Currently, the polling data shows both houses likely to be Republican-controlled. Given Trump's notoriously short coattails, this could easily swing Democratic, resulting in an impotent Trump presidency unable to effect any change requiring legislative approval and also besieged by impeachments. Alternately, should the Republicans control one or both legislative groups, they would similarly throttle the impact of a second Biden administration.
​
Many have pointed to nonresponse bias as one of the potential reasons for significant polling errors, supposedly because Democrats were more likely to respond to pollsters than Republicans.  Some pollsters theorized that the Republicans who answered may have differed in crucial ways from those who didn't. The 2020 election's record-setting turnout amid the COVID-19 pandemic posed another tricky situation as states expanded mail-in voting.

Google Trends Values for the Term Presidential Polling Over the Past Year Demonstrate Intense Interest (Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of one hundred is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term)

Beyond gathering a representative sample, election polling presents another challenge: gauging what the electorate will look like in each election cycle. This weighting means adjusting the sample to reflect anticipated voting turnout.

The problem with weighting is that it is more of an art than a science. After being burned badly in 2016, adjusting, and still being slightly inaccurate in 2020, polling experts will attempt to weight survey analyses more in Trump's favor, mitigating the risk of an embarrassingly erroneous poll.  
​
Different sampling and weighting techniques featured trade-offs and offered no silver bullets. As we look ahead to a November rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, pollsters are under pressure to address the problems they faced in 2020 as they aim to hit a moving target amid great public scrutiny.

Another factor in dismissing presidential polling data is the clickbait factor. Close races increase interest, and in the era of data analytics, a close poll draws interest, resulting in more money. There's a financial interest in presenting these results, often abbreviated. With margin of error rates in the 3% range, a close poll is meaningless as it usually means the race is a tie.
​
The long and short is one should ignore clickbait poll reports and look for deeper and more nuanced data.