OF POLLS, VOTES AND WHEN WE WILL KNOW RESULTS; VOTES; 2020 REDUX

I offer a poignant moment and a good poll.

The moment is President Biden voting early in Delaware, standing online and helping an elderly lady in a wheelchair in front of him.

The Polls

The second is the reputable Cooperative Election Study summary of pre-election interviews which produced a 48,000 likely voter model showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 51%-47%. The CES has been doing pre and post-election interviews with voters since 2008 and publishes a post-election analysis to compare who actually voted to their interviews about voting intentions before the elections. At least the sample is big but pollsters will tell you even big samples can get it wrong.

After 2016 and 2020, the American polling industry  went back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong when it underestimated support for Donald Trump. The industry has intensified efforts to accurately capture the sentiments of American voters and to compensate for low response rates, especially from non-college educated white voters, by weighting their responses more heavily in the samples. They have also changed how the samples are collected, relying more on mailers and opt-in online polls along with weighting.

These extraordinarily cautious approaches may be a factor in why current polling results are producing much tighter margins, with the Washington Post national average polling lead for Harris on October 27^th of two points, the New York Times national average polling lead for Harris on October 28^th of one point, and the virtual dead heats in the seven swing states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

We may know the winner a little sooner this year, since there are fewer mail ballots with the COVID pandemic in the rear view mirror. According to the University of Florida Election Lab, about 100 million Americans voted either early or by mail (including dropping ballots into drop boxes on election day) in 2020. On Sunday, October 25^th, 2020, nine days before the election, 60 million Americans had voted early or by mail.

Here is the final 2020 early and mail ballot summary:

Total Early Votes: 101,453,111 • In-Person Votes: 35,811,062 • Mail Ballots Returned: 65,642,049 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 26,576,729

The early voting and mail ballot summary as of October 31, 2024, for the nation as a whole is as follows:

Total Early Votes: 60,603,354 • In-Person Early Votes: 32,338,549 • Mail Ballots Returned: 28,146,968 • Mail Ballots Requested: 66,044,559
Last updated: Oct 31, 2024 @ 8:37am Eastern Time

Early in-person voting will continue into this weekend and will exceed the 35 million from 2020; that includes many Republicans who voted on election day in 2020, meaning the election day vote will balance out to a more even split between Democrats and Republicans. California sent out 22 million mail ballots and only 5 million have been returned so far, so tens of millions of mail ballots more than the current number will come in.

The Swing States

Here is the situation in critical swing states now and how soon we will know their results.

                                         PENNSYLVANIA

The Associated Press called the Presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday morning, Nov. 8, 2020, after calling Pennsylvania for him that morning. Pennsylvania law  prohibits election workers from opening and processing mail ballots until election day itself, meaning delays as they are tallied on election night and days after.  That law has not changed, although Pennsylvania boards of election will have to report how many mail ballots are left to be counted at midnight on election night. In 2020 there were 3.0 million mail ballots requested and 2.6 million returned, out of the 6.9 million cast.

Here is the mail ballot status of Pennsylvania as of Oct. 28, 2024.

Returned Mail Ballots by Party Registration

Party	Mail Ballots Accepted	Percent	Ballots Requested	Percent Returned
Democrat	823,421	58.2 %	1,160,036	71.0 %
Republican	443,935	31.4 %	666,187	66.6 %
None/Minor	147,483	10.4 %	264,737	55.7 %
TOTAL	1,414,839	100 %	2,090,960	67.7 %

In 2020 more than 80% of mail ballot requests were returned in Pennsylvania. In 2024 about 500,000 more Democrats than Republicans have requested mail ballots. There is no early voting in Pennsylvania, and the polls close @ 8pm Eastern Standard time. I estimate we should know Pennsylvania’s outcome by Thursday after the election.

                                                  NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina was the second to last state to be called by the Associated Press in 2020, but this year we may know swing state North Carolina’s results on election night. The AP did not call North Carolina for former President Trump until Nov. 13, 2020, eight days after the Presidential election. In 2020, mail ballots in North Carolina were permitted to be received after Election Day, but in 2023, the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature changed the law and now all mail ballots must be received by 7:30pm on Election Day, November 5, 2024, the same time the polls close in that state.   Early voting started in North Carolina on Oct. 17 and ends Saturday, Nov. 2. Despite Hurricane Helene, the North Carolina Board of Elections announced that 400 early voting sites were operational in the state, including 76 votes in the 25 counties most affected by the hurricane.

UF Election Lab reports that as of October 29, 2024, 2.935 million North Carolinians have voted early, 166,000 have voted by mail out of 448,000 mail ballots requested.

North Carolina election boards are permitted to process mail ballots weeks before Election Day, and begin tallying them as of 5pm Election night.  A Quinnipiac Poll released on October 16 reported that only 8% of respondents said they planned to vote by mail, and 53% said they planned to vote at an early location site. In 2020 almost 20% of residents voted by mail.  With the curtailed mail ballot deadlines and  fewer mail ballots to count, we may know the North Carolina result late on election night unless only a few thousand votes separate the candidates.

                                                GEORGIA

Georgia’s results in 2020 were so close a hand recount was ordered, and Joe Biden was confirmed as the winner on November 19.

The polls close at 7:00pm in Georgia. In Georgia, mail ballots are permitted to be processed weeks before Election Day, and tabulations of mail ballots can begin at 7am on Election Day. There were 5 million votes in Georgia in 2020 but this state has been growing and there will be more. Already, according to the UF Election Lab, there have been over 3 million votes in Georgia, including 186,000 mail ballots returned. Early voting ends in Georgia on Nov. 1.

Georgia will provide an early clue as to the results if one candidate is far ahead on Election night. If Georgia is so close and is  not called on Election night, it means potentially many days before we will know the overall national winner.

                                              MICHIGAN

Amendments to the State Constitution and enactments by the Democratically-controlled Legislature have allowed no-excuse mail ballots and early voting. Mail ballots in jurisdictions with over 5,000 residents can process their mail ballots starting eight days before the election. The sum of these changes may allow results in Michigan to be known on election night. The polls close at 8pm Eastern time.

As of October 28, 1.8 million mail ballots have been returned out of 2.9 million requested.  250,000 Michiganders voted in person early over the weekend. Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast in 2020.

This concludes the swing states in the Eastern time zone review, in terms of getting good information about the results in the early evening.

                          NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, ILLINOIS

Although New York is not a swing state, I am encouraged by the polls in New York, where months ago first President Biden, and then Kamala Harris, were defeating Trump with nowhere near the 2020 margins, where Biden beat him 61-38. That has changed. Here are the most recent polls:

These polls, very close to Biden’s margin, are reassuring. The New York Times poll also estimated New York City to be 31% of statewide turnout, but City voters were 36% of the turnout in early voting over the weekend. They were 35% of the statewide turnout in 2020. Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles has reported that the insane attacks on Puerto Rico during the Trump Madison Square Garden rally are getting widespread national attention in the Spanish media.

The most recent polls by Activote in Illinois and New Jersey show Harris ahead 58-42 in Illinois and 57-43 in New Jersey, with Trump picking up 1-1/1/2 points in each state compared to 2020. ActiVote has been a prolific pollster this cycle, but its most recent polls show Harris gaining and I find it reassuring that these blue state polls are coming in close to 2020 margins.

                                              NEVADA

Nevada’s polls close at 7pm, (10pm Eastern time). All Nevada registered voters get mail ballots and they must be postmarked by election day and can be counted if they arrive four days past Election Day. The Nevada Supreme Court just ruled that ballots without postmarks can also be counted within three days of Election day ( if otherwise valid, i.e, meet signature requirements). Democrats tend to vote late in Nevada and we may not know until the last mail ballots are counted who will win Nevada. As of October 28, more Republicans had voted early in person than Democrats in Nevada, but Democrats vote by mail more heavily than Republicans, at least in the past. The situation is more uncertain than ever as the number of independents in Nevada has grown by several hundred thousand since 2020 and how they vote will determine the election.

                                                   ARIZONA

In Arizona, ballots cast and processed before Election Day will be reported on election night. In 2020, Fox News called Arizona for Biden shortly after 11pm on Election night, despite having only 73% of the vote reported. The AP called Arizona for Biden around 3am on election night. There were still 1 million ballots that had been turned in on Election Day that had to be counted. The same process could play out again in Arizona. It is estimated it may take Maricopa County, where 60% of the State’s population lives, 10 to 13 days to count the remaining mail ballots.

                                                  WISCONSIN

Wisconsin polls will close at 8pm Election Day, (9pm Eastern time). In 2020, the A.P. called Wisconsin at 2:00pm in the afternoon the day after the election. Tabulating the vote is slow in Wisconsin. Mail ballots are not processed until Election Day and the mail ballot deadline is Election Day. 511,000 residents have voted early as of Oct. 29, and 478,000 of 1.149 million mail ballots requested have been returned. Wisconsin was nearly a dead heat in the past two presidential elections and I anticipate it will be so again.

Why is Harris Going to Win?

The Biden campaign’s investment in an election infrastructure in the swing states is going to carry the day this time. The Democratic ground game will get the low-propensity Democratic voters out.

Harris will do well among younger voters. The Harvard Harris Youth

Poll showed a 23-point gap among registered voters under 30, and 31 points among likely voters.

Harris will utterly dominate the black vote. The Howard University second wave swing state poll of black voters showed 84% for Harris, 8% for Trump, and 2% for others. An ABC-Ipsos poll showed over 90% for Harris among black voters.

Three polls of Latino voters only had similar results: New York Times,56%-37%; Hispanic Federation 59%-37% for Harris, and Pew Research Center 54%-39% for Harris.

An Asian American vote survey showed Asian voters for Harris 66%-28%.

The takeaway from these polls of voters with larger samples of the target groups than regular polls, is that Harris is holding the 2020 Biden vote across the board among young people and people of color. The CES poll I mentioned at the beginning of this article had Trump up by 52%-45% among white voters, a far cry from the exit polls in 2020 that showed him carrying the white vote 58%-41%. The New York Times final poll showed Trump carrying the white vote 54%-43%. The polls have underestimated both support for Harris among young people and people of color, and underestimated their proportion of the electorate.

It’s still going to be a squeaker, but Harris will win.