Tipsheet

Polling Picture: More Emerging Good News for Republicans, With Some Cautionary Caveats

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 10, 2024 2:15 PM

Let's set aside the polling noise for a moment.  We will touch on some of the new numbers below, but I'd like to spend a moment looking at bigger trends and dynamics that will be very significant in the coming weeks.  We recently wrote about Gallup's 2024 data, which was filled with very strong numbers for the GOP.  Here's how I summarized the big takeaways in late September: "Gallup asked Americans which party they trust more to handle the issue they care about the most -- whatever that issue might be.  The GOP holds a five-point lead on that question.  For the last 20 years, every time Democrats lead on this question, they've won the White House.  Every time they they've trailed Republicans on it, they've lost.  They trail on it this year. On which party is more trusted to make America prosperous, a generalized economy question, Republicans are up by six points, 50-44 percent.  On a question on keeping the country safe, the GOP's advantage is larger, 54-40 percent.  A majority of Americans say they want the federal government to do less (55 percent) versus more (41 percent), Joe Biden's job approval is just south of 40 percent, views of the economy are sour (-28 percentage point index scale), and Republicans have a tick higher favorability rating than Democrats overall.  On nine of ten issues polled, the GOP leads."

I also included this fact pattern, which would indicate that the 'party ID' metric may be the most encouraging news of the batch from Gallup:


The Wall Street Journal is out with a new examination on the 'party ID' question, using NBC polling numbers:

Beneath the headline results in many polls, something unusual has turned up with big implications for politics: More voters are calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, suggesting that the GOP has its first durable lead in party identification in more than three decades. The development gives former President Donald Trump an important structural advantage in the November election...Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster who works on NBC News surveys, first noticed in May that more voters were calling themselves Republicans. “Wow, the biggest deal in polling is when lines cross, and for the first time in decades, Republicans now have the national edge on party ID,” he wrote. He called the development “the underrecognized game-changer for 2024.” In combined NBC polls this year, Republicans lead by 2 percentage points over Democrats, 42% to 40%, when voters were asked which party they identified with. That compares with Democratic leads of 6 points in 2020, 7 points in 2016 and 9 points in 2012.

On this measurement, Republicans generally are eight points ahead of where they were four years ago.  And this pattern hasn't just turned up in NBC's findings, either:

Gallup also found more voters identifying as Republican than Democratic, by 3 points in its July-to-September surveys. It was the first time that the GOP had an advantage in the third quarter before a presidential election in Gallup surveys dating to 1992...Pew Research Center found the GOP with a 1-point lead this spring in an extensive, 5,600-person poll it conducted to create benchmarks for its other surveys. As with Gallup and NBC polls, each party’s share of voters included people who call themselves independents but also say they consistently lean toward one party. The last time that presidential Election Day exit polls found Republicans on a level playing field with Democrats in party identification was in 2004, when the two were tied. That was also the only year in about three decades that Republicans won the national popular vote.

There is no guarantee whatsoever that all of this will translate into a GOP victory on November 5th, but these are positive signs that shouldn't be ignored or written off. Combine those bigger-picture trends with the horserace polling we're seeing, and there's a pretty strong case to be made that Trump might be considered a narrow frontrunner right now:

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I recently discussed 2016 and 2020 polling misses, and what that phenomenon might mean for Trump's electoral prospects this year, on Fox:


My word of caution absolutely applies: Just because we saw something happen the last two times Trump was on the ballot doesn't automatically guarantee that it will occur again. It might not. But there's obviously precedent in play that can't just be dismissed. If I had to guess, I'd say some sort of polling miss in the same direction is probable, but not definite. Here's another cautionary note, which speaks to a dynamic I've covered repeatedly, back to when Biden was the Democratic nominee:


If the most engaged and reliable voters show up, Democrats have a clear advantage.  If middle-to-low propensity voters (people who sometimes or rarely vote) show up in force, the seesaw tips back toward Trump.  Per this battlegrounds analysis, Harris is up four with the former group; Trump is up seven with the latter.  Turnout and participation will be huge.  Democrats likely have a superior turnout and ballot operation, as we've seen over recent cycles.  What the Republicans can pull off to counter that advantage could be the whole ballgame.  Elections aren't just popularity contests of prevailing preferences -- they're won and lost by the people who actually cast ballots.  I'll leave you with this: