The noise you hear is the joy of progressives and their media friends over the fresh New York Times and Siena poll, as we are less than 24 hours away from this week’s Sunday broadcasts, which appears to show Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of Republican nominee Donald Trump in three key swing states. But there are mighty reasons to doubt this normally reliable polling firm.
let us see First the numbers. This is how the NYT celebrated the “dramatic turnaround”:
Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald J. Trump The Democratic Party has repositioned itself in three crucial swing states following President Biden’s exit from the presidential race, fresh polls from The New York Times and Siena College show, the latest sign of a dramatic shift in Democrats’ positioning.
Mrs Harris is In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, he is four percentage points ahead of Trump, with 50 percent compared to 46 percent. among likely voters in each state. Polls were conducted August 5-9.
The polls … come after nearly a year of surveys showing either a neck-and-neck race or a narrow lead for Mr Trump over Mr Biden. [emphasis added]
It continues:
Much of the Democrats’ newfound strength results from improved voters’ perception of Mrs Harris. Her The popularity rate has increased by 10 percentage points among registered voters in Pennsylvania last month alone, according to Times/Siena polls. Voters consider Mrs Harris to be more knowledgeable and temperamentally better suited to govern than Mr. Trump.
The fact that there has been such an raise within 30 days could be due to the fact that the established media have worked in lockstep to pull out all the stops to portray Harris (and now her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz) in the most positive airy possible.
Read more:
Doocy and Watters expose Kamala’s evasive maneuvers as a fresh report explains how she gets away with it
The chaos after Kamala’s rally in Detroit is a symbol of what her presidency would do to America
After ignoring the story for a week, the press cleanup team arrives to protect Tim Walz
I immediately see a few problems with the way the survey was conducted. The sample is minuscule, 600 Guys. And the error rate ranges from 4.3 to almost 5 points, which is too high for my taste.
But analyst Ryan Girdusky says there are other “very big problems” with the survey:
The NY Times/Siena polls are of very high quality, but I see some very gigantic problems:
Trump does not lose senior citizens by 12
Harris is not on par with white voters
Trump’s lead over whites without college degrees is 30, not 13.I suspect that there is an overselection among older liberal women https://t.co/Ptk6W8siRR
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) 10 August 2024
In case you can’t read the post, he wrote:
The NY Times/Siena polls are of very high quality, but I see some very gigantic problems:
Trump does not lose senior citizens by 12
Harris is not on par with white voters
Trump’s lead over whites without college degrees is 30, not 13.
I suspect that there is an overselection among older liberal women
He added: why he has deep doubts if you look at the NYT Siena poll this time:
I have a lot of respect for the folks at the Times, and I hate to be the guy who keeps harping on the crosstabs, but polls are often wrong when a lot of committed liberal women do too much polling, which was the case in these three states in 2016.
When Girdusky was asked to explain his claim, was thorough in explaining his reasons – and it is worth reproducing them in full:
With very few exceptions, past voting behavior and poll averages are the most vital indicators of future voting behavior.
Last time, Trump won by 6 among seniors, and polls show him leading by an average of 8 among that demographic, which seems about right.
So unless something more radical happens that appeals to that demographic, it would have roughly the same effect. Think of Obama’s realignment of white college graduates or Trump’s realignment of blue-collar workers or Hispanic men.
According to this poll, Harris is winning among seniors in Michigan by 20 points, a 27-point change from 2020. That’s just not possible.
The problem with cross-tabulation is that in some cases, like Asians, Hispanics, or blacks, the samples are too petite to get right numbers, and among seniors there is a tendency for overly vigorous liberals (either registered Democrats or indies who always vote Democrat) to want to get into the polls. Happened in 2020 and 2016 too.
It’s refreshing to see analyses like this that don’t simply conform to the narrative chosen by the left, even in a poll that is widely considered unbiased. As he says, it just doesn’t change that radically from one election cycle to the next. There’s something wrong here.
You can see the full results of the NYT/Siena poll Here.
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