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About Last Night (aka Cowards, Keyboards, and Fundamentals)

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So that happened. Arizona and Michigan aren’t quite finished counting, and Nevada’s Senate race is extremely close, but the big picture result is set.

Before 2AM Donald Trump had clearly won enough electoral votes to become the 47th President of the United States. If you were watching carefully (more on this below) you knew long before then that this was his night.

In hindsight the drivers behind this election seem pretty clear, and many were things we’ve been pointing out for months. (And that those who wanted to deny the resulting picture have been trying to deny.) Here are some of the key facts that drove the election:

The underlying narrative favored Trump.

• As we have noted for months, the high levels of dissatisfaction with the economy, the border, and general feeling that the country was on the wrong track all favored Trump over Harris.

• To a large extent Trump successfully framed the ballot question into some variant of “do you think the people in charge are working for your interests, or do you want me to make changes.” (Many did.)

• Harris built a contrast with Trump, but that contrast boiled down to Trump versus an unsatisfactory status quo, not two competing visions of change.

New voters were Trump voters.

• We’ve been saying for more than a month that the zero of 4 voters in our polls were overwhelmingly voting for Trump.

• In the early vote, Trump produced tens of thousands of more votes from Republicans who hadn’t voted before than Harris did from Democrats. When you added infrequent voters showing up this year, those number became even more massive.

• The exit polls confirm this trend. In 2020, Biden won first-time voters by 32 points. This year Trump won them by nine.

The kids are alright.  

  • Joe Biden won voters 18-29 by 24 points in 2020. According to the exit polls so far (usual caution about non-final weighted exits), Kamala Harris won them by just 13 points.
  • In 2020, the oldest tranche in that 18-29 grouping were Millennials, four years on and it’s almost wholly a Gen Z voting bloc.
  • We’ve been saying all year that Gen Z voters are not Millennials and that there were some early indications of an openness of at least some in Gen Z to shift back to Republicans. Data on values propositions like a return to church attendance among particularly some Gen Z men supported this.
  • A lot will be made of Trump’s outreach to Gen Z men through podcasts and other non-traditional channels, and that is certainly part of the puzzle, but the left-wing dismissiveness of the “Bro-volution,” as one pundit called it last night, risks missing a real cultural change in young America.
  • And let us note that there was a smaller, but present, rightward shift among women in this age range as well.

Donald Trump had a historically good performance with Hispanics, particularly Hispanic men. 

  • Trump lost Hispanics by just eight points, besting George W. Bush’s nine-point loss in 2004 and blowing away the performances of every other Republican this century.
  • Trump won Hispanic men by ten points, a 33-point shift from 2020, and narrowed Democrats’ lead with Hispanic women by 15 points.
  • We did a lot of Hispanic focus groups this year and the story we heard over and over again was that the Biden-Harris immigration policies were bringing crime and danger into their communities and that the Biden-Harris economy was failing them.
  • Democrats countered this with “Latinx,” “representation,” and accusations of racism. Those may have played well in ethnic studies departments and with the punditry, but they fell flat with real voters leading real lives.
  • In fact, it is important to note that we are looking at a major shift – the GOP is moving toward having a more diverse coalition than the Democratic party. The Democrats are increasingly dependent on only two demographics: college-educated white women and urban African-Americans.

Kamala Harris had an African American vote problem and an urban problem. 

  • One of the first warning signs for Harris was a Trump win in heavily Black Baldwin County, Georgia. After going for both Clinton and Biden by nearly two points in 2016 and 2020, it swung to a two-point Trump win this year.
  • That kind of small, but meaningful shift would show up across the country.  As of this moment, with votes still being counted, Harris is winning places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit by five to ten points less Joe Biden did four years ago.
  • The exit polls don’t suggest that Harris did worse among Black voters, her margins are the same as Biden’s, but Black turnout, which was down in the early vote, continued to underperform.

Kamala Harris is no Scranton Joe. 

  • Joe Biden, in his current diminished state, wouldn’t have won this election. But Kamala Harris couldn’t hold onto some key parts of Biden’s coalition.
  • Biden won the union vote in 2020 by 16 points. Harris won it this year by just 10 and we suspect that if you excluded public sector union members, the shift would have been even more stark.
  • Trump beat Biden among white Catholics by just 12 points in 2020. He beat Harris by 23.
  • This shift played out in key places like Erie and Bucks counties in Pennsylvania, both of which flipped from narrow Biden wins to narrow Trump wins.

But What About the Polls? 

A few notes about polling, and we’ll have a lot more to say about this in the week ahead. There really seem to have been three types of polls and pollsters his year:

  • Those who learned the lessons of 2016 and 2020, made sensible methodological adjustments and more or less got things right.
  • Those who stubbornly refused to do the things that most (not all) campaign pollsters did and continued to not weight on education and/or not make partisan non-response adjustments to their polls, including on past election recall. These pollsters, many of them well-known, looked foolish last night. If these pollsters want to continue to stubbornly make the theoretical argument that these non-response adjustments are wrong, they really owe it to their editors/sponsors/just the public in general to propose some alternate method of fixing their issues. Because they’ve not been wrong for three consecutive Presidential elections, in the exact same direction, and for the exact same predictable reasons.
  • A special place in our contempt is reserved for the pollsters who just refused to take a position and tortured their data to show every single competitive state (and a few non-competitive ones) a one-point race or a tie. We’re not even sure why they bother.

Before we go, it’s time to say goodbye to the two most over-wrought and eventually pointless stories of the election: 

  • The “Hinchcliffe” effect and pundit pearl clutching about Trumps Madison Square Garden rally. Our first clear signal that this was going to be a good night for Trump was when heavily Puerto Rican Osceola County and Orange County in Florida came in great for Trump. He eventually won Osceola, a county Biden won by 14, and cut ten points off of his 2020 loss in Orange. Oh, and Trump won Miami-Dade County, which has a lot of Puerto Ricans too. Turns out voters are smart enough to separate comedy from policy.
  • Riots, chaos, pandemonium in the streets, etc. etc. As of this moment, Trump has won the electoral college and leads by around five million votes across the country. That second number will come down as the long count in California and the Pacific Northwest continues, but it seems clear at this point that Trump will have won both the thing that matters and the popular vote that doesn’t. We suspect that some over-privileged children on college campuses might still have very public meltdowns and that the Democratic media and DC establishment will have their usual small acts of rebellion (will team Biden remove all the T keys from the keyboards?), but a peaceful transition of power seems almost assured.

And Finally …

Republicans seem to have cleared the Collins/Murkowski threshold in the Senate, allowing Trump to pick his cabinet and confirm judges. That’s bigger than you think.

The House still has a long way to go as California counts ballots, but things are looking better for Republicans than they were around midnight. It’s a bit nerdy compared to the big stuff above, but being able to do fiscal policy through reconciliation would be huge.

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Bryon Allen (ballen@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Will the Jewish Vote Be the Game Changer in 2024?

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In a recent speech to a pro-Israel group, former President Donald Trump suggested that the Jewish vote could determine this election — and he may be right.

Pennsylvania, which could decide the fate of the White House in 2024, has over 400,000 Jewish residents, comprising 3.3 percent of its population. In a race where the Keystone State’s 19 electoral votes are up for grabs, even small shifts in key demographics could sway the results, and data indicates that the Jewish vote is no longer as predictable as it once was.

Read the full article by WPAi’s Matt Knee at https://www.westernjournal.com/op-ed-will-jewish-vote-game-changer-2024/

Debate Recap, Swift’s Endorsement, and the Gender Gap – WPAi Weekly Update – September 13

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This week’s headline is, of course, the Trump/Harris debate on Tuesday night. Given that the first Presidential debate effectively ended Biden’s candidacy it is fair to say that the stakes were high for both sides.  

This week’s headline is, of course, the Trump/Harris debate on Tuesday night. Given that the first Presidential debate effectively ended Biden’s candidacy it is fair to say that the stakes were high for both sides.  

We mentioned last week that Trump was in an easier situation than Harris going into the debate, however. He was fully defined, for good or ill, with almost every American voter where she had a much vaguer image.  

Both sides met their minimum conditions for the night, and Harris exceeded hers. Trump looked his energetic and talkative self, and that comfortably familiar performance is what his supporters wanted to see. Harris, on the other hand, managed to both stay composed and ultimately bait Trump into some soundbites Democratic strategists will be able to weaponize over the next two months (You can read the Harris campaign’s publicly released analysis of the result here and the Trump campaign’s here.) 

The debate was widely watched, especially in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania. In the media, and some of the quick-turnaround polling, Harris appears to have come out ahead in terms of net impression.  

The campaigns clearly view their potential upside from another debate differently, with the Harris campaign immediately pushing for a second one, while Trump stated that there will be no second debate. Harris’ team clearly feel that they made up ground, while Trump himself seems to feel that there is no upside for him in another round. That said, Trump has been known to change his mind as circumstances change, so we’ll what the chain reaction of countermoves has in store. 

Right on the heels of the debate came the first major dominoes, when Taylor Swift endorsed Harris. Because nothing makes me feel more alive, we can transition the Taylor Swift endorsement into a larger conversation about the gender gap on the ballot. The haters gonna hate, but Swift’s endorsement did have one immediate impact: driving over 400k worth of traffic to vote.gov with her post. But will it have an electoral impact?  

Swift did endorse in the 2018 Tennessee Senate race, and while some thought it would doom Blackburn, it didn’t. But while that endorsement was more reminiscent of Swift’s Reputation-era clap-backs (“Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me”), her endorsement of Harris was relatively measured, though with the “childless cat lady” sign-off to add a little hook at the end.  

What we need to be cautious of is treating this as a cause for the monster slowly lurching toward your favorite city: what will likely be the biggest gender gap we’ve ever seen. 

The Center for American Women in Politics has a comprehensive factsheet on the gender gap, including looking at all the subgroups within the women’s vote. For the hope of it all, we’ve had a gender gap since the late 1970s, and 50 years is a long time. But it reached its peak in the last two elections, with a 12-point gap in 2020 following 11-points in 2016.  

In polls from the last fortnight, the gender gap is at least at these peaks if not even bigger: The recent NYT/Sienna National Poll had the gender gap at 14-points, the NPR/PBS/Marist poll of RVs had the gap at 13-points and a NYPost Poll had it at 12-points. It’s smaller in some states. For example, in Florida (!!!), it’s only 8-points according to the latest Emerson poll. 

There are two sides to this gender gap. As poorly as Republicans are doing with women, Democrats are doing poorly with men. But we’re not in the business of trying to help Democrats win, so let’s look how we got here and what we can do to minimize the impact.  

The Republican party, led in large part by the Trump campaign, has leaned into an alpha type masculine approach to 2024 which made sense when it was a Trump v Biden race and virility was a stand in for having the energy to perform the job. It’s not a tone that women voters will naturally gravitate toward, but when the alternative was Biden, it was appealing enough to enough women. Now, everything has changed and with Harris as the opposition, those women are in exile and are leaving out the side door, but it’s too late to take back the Hulk Hogan moment at the convention and all it represents. 

But still, while thematic choices exacerbate the gap, it is not the driver of the problem. 

A recent Gallup analysis found that more women 18-29 are identifying themselves as political liberal than ever before. Another Gallup report earlier this year showed that younger and senior women were reporting more liberal while men were remaining consistent. 

We couldn’t get through a conversation on the gender gap without talking about abortion (but aren’t you impressed we made it this far?). Part of the reason Gallup found more women 18-29 are considering themselves to be liberal comes from those who say abortion should be legal under any/most circumstances. In 2001-2007 this was 43%, it’s now 60%.  

Earlier this year, Pew found that there was not a significant difference between how men and women viewed the issue, with 64% of women and 61% of men saying abortion should be legal in all/most cases, vs 33% of women and 38% of men saying it should be illegal in all or most cases. But clearly the issue has a greater salience for one gender over the other.  

With the emphasis Democrats are placing on the issue post-Dobbs, the number of ballot measures where voters can directly have their say on the issue, and the clips Democrats have of Republican candidates saying they are “100% pro life,” it’s death by a thousand cuts. 

It is noteworthy that more women cite being liberal on environmental issues than abortion, and the biggest gender gap between men and women 18-29 continues to be about the Second Amendment: 74% of women say gun laws should be more strict compared to 51% of men. 

Finally, it’s worth noting that Republican policy and rhetoric has been trending more populist in the Trump era which is also exacerbating the gender dynamics through secondary effects. Trump’s populism strongly connects with non-college educated voters and alienates college educated voters. His ascendency in the Republican party sped up the shift of college educated voters (women and men) to supporting Democrats. With women outpacing men in college enrollment, populist messaging will have limited reach with women voters in the future. 

This is not to say populism can’t connect with women – 20th century populism embraced suffrage. The growing educational attainment of women, especially relative to men, adds a ceiling to its usefulness—but there are still millions of women with whom a populist message will resonate if Republicans can find the right language to use to communicate. 

Leading up to the debate, Tulsi Gabbard said, “President Trump respects women and doesn’t feel the need to be patronizing and to speak to women in any other way than he speaks to a man.” That’s right, but it’s also not: the invisible string here is that women approach issues differently than men, consume different media, react differently to the same terminology. It’s not about wholesale changing a message or campaign just to reach women. Instead, it’s about using the right imagery and language to focus on the same issues in a way that will connect with them.  

Consider the economy: many Republicans feel comfortable talking about the economy like they’ve just walked off the set of CNBC: job numbers, wages, the stock market. But when women are talking about the economy, it’s more about prices, and costs (the outgoing rather than the incoming). It’s not patronizing to be speaking to costs instead of the stock market, it’s just good politics.  

(Bonus for those of you who made it this far, the first person to correctly guess the number of Taylor Swift lyric references we worked into this email wins some WPAi swag) 

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Conor Maguire (cmaguire@wpaintel.com)

WPAi Weekly Update – September 6

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Another week gone already, and there are a few points to touch on today. We’re now a few days out from the first debate between Trump and Harris. The first and potentially most important time we will see these two Presidential candidates face-to-face live and in person. These are always important events, and this one even more so than usual.  

Trump is a brand so complete as to be the envy of marketing experts everywhere. This sets expectations for Trump and allows him an opportunity to demonstrate the pugnaciousness and honed mockery his supporters adore. It also means he has some latitude if he has a mediocre night – barring a total disaster, his brand will carry him through. 

Harris has a steeper hill to climb. She has a much softer and less well-defined image with the public, and her path to victory depends on her ability to solidify that definition. She needs to look like she measures up to Trump as an adversary. If she seems overmatched or nervous it will complicate her ability to lock in the audiences who have been leaning toward her since she was named the nominee. 

The debate takes place as Harris’ lead in a national polling aggregation has slid from +3.7 to +3.1 . That is probably closer to a +2 among likely voters. At the moment, it is probably fair to say that Harris has a narrow lead in the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and crucial Pennsylvania with the other battlegrounds being too close to call. With the largest lead in any of these battlegrounds being ~3% in Wisconsin, this is another way to say that all 7 battlegrounds are inside the margin of error in polling and could move in any direction with a few 10s of thousands of votes.  

We’re going to take a look at Absentee and Mail-in voting requests next week, as that process is now underway. 

August fundraising numbers are in for the Presidential campaigns, and the Harris team generated a prodigious $361 million last month. Always, bear in mind that campaign fundraising reports show the gross, not the net. Small-dollar fundraising is often at or near break-even, showing cash flow but little net income. So, until we see the actual report, let’s take the topline number with a grain of salt. That cautionary note given; this kind of money likely means that resources are available for the Harris campaign to chase any voters they need to in key states. For a clear example of this AdImpact shows a $168 million advantage in ad reservations in the battleground states:  

We’ve mentioned before that a number of key Senate races have major fundraising gaps in favor of the Democratic campaigns. In Arizona, Gallego (D) enjoys a 3:1 fundraising advantage over Lake (R). ButLake saw a major infusion of outside cash this week. The third-party PAC Win it Back has announced a $12 million ad buy to make up much of that media share gap. Keep an eye on similar efforts in other key races to make up for campaign-side fundraising shortfalls. 

It’s also worth noting that a North Carolina court has ordered Kennedy’s name removed from ballots just before they were to be sent.  

We have to touch on the issue of foreign involvement/interference in the American information space this week in light of the dramatic indictment against two Russian citizens (employees of the Russia Today network). The DoJ alleges the two funneled money into an American company, now identified as Tenet Media, to pay for content favorable to Russia/in line with Russian priorities. This follows closely on the heels of an indictment that alleges a former aide to New York governors Hochul and Cuomo was a Chinese spy. It is worth considering just how open the American system is to outside money and influence, and how cheap a few million dollars is to a long list of foreign states and interests. These indictments are not likely to be the last of their kind. 

Finally, we want to (re)share our Voter Targeting Game Plans. Not every race has millions to spend on tv, or the funds for custom modeling projects, but professionals still want to make sure they’re spending their money effectively. Starting at $2,500 for a Congressional District, $1,000 for a State Legislative District or County Seat, and $500 for a School Board District, these Game Plans provide basic turnout, net party models, and a relevant issue model for each campaign. We also provide recommendations for how to use each universe and the contact information you’ll need to execute your voter contact plans. 

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Conor Maguire (cmaguire@wpaintel.com)

Voter Targeting Game Plan Announcement

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WPA Intelligence Voter Targeting Game Plans are now available to give campaigns at all levels a strategic advantage in voter targeting by identifying exactly who campaigns need to persuade, and who they need to motivate.

Designed by WPAi Data Scientists using machine learning and predictive analytics, these models are an advancement over basic voter data and can be seamlessly incorporated into your voter targeting efforts.

Click here to purchase

Campaign Effectively, On A Budget:

Starting at $2,500 for a Congressional District, $1,000 for a State Legislative District or County Seat, and $500 for a School Board District, these Game Plans will make your campaign smarter and more effective.

Target Beyond Voter Registration:

The parties have undergone fundamental shifts in the past decade, but voters rarely change their registration – they just vote differently. These models capture the demographic shifts in the electorate better than simply relying on what is available on the voter file.

Past Voter History Will Only Get You So Far: 

These models identify who is likely to turnout this November based on past voter history plus consumer data to find those voters who might be more (or less) motivated to turnout this year.

Use Key Issues To Motivate And Persuade:

Each Voter Targeting plan comes with an issue model overlay relevant to your campaign, and there are additional add-on options available for purchase.

Click here to purchase

What You Get:

  • Likely turnout in your district with a vote goal.
  • Universes dividing the entire electorate into 14 targeting universes to help prioritize outreach.
  • Recommendations for when and how to engage with each universe.
  • An issue model identifying voters who are likely to support a key issue for the 2024 campaign. (Ex: Securing the border for Federal candidates, prosecuting crime for state and local, and parental rights for school board campaigns)
  • Options to add on additional issues or flags.  
  • A list of every voter in your district with names, mailing addresses, and reliable phone numbers.

WPAi Weekly Update – August 30

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A quick note this week, with everyone (hopefully) taking their last mental break before Election Day. 

While polling often overrepresents a third-party candidates’ support, RFK Jr’s withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Donald Trump will have some reverberations. First and foremost, it is worth bearing in mind how few votes might be needed to swing the result in some of the battleground states. Arizona and Georgia were decided by less than 12,000 votes in 2020, and Wisconsin has been decided by less than 23,000 in each of the last two presidential elections. It might not take much to have a big impact. 

RFK Jr already saw a drop off in the polls after Biden exited the race. He was the landing spot for many of the “double haters” for Trump and Biden, with the Washington Post-Schar poll finding that 53% of double haters would vote for Kennedy back in June.  

Kennedy’s supporters trended both younger and less likely to vote. They also reported themselves much less strongly attached to Kennedy than other candidate’s voters, with 18% saying they back Kennedy strongly compared to 64% for Trump and 62% for Harris. The numbers for “extremely motivated to vote” were 23% for Kennedy supporters, as opposed to 72% for Trump supporters and 70% for Harris supporters. In short, the small Kennedy percentages in battleground states probably overstate his actual impact on the popular vote – but the margins are so small that it may matter. 

As an added complication, it looks like RFK will not be able to remove himself from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, and at least some North Carolina counties have already sent ballots to print with RFK on them. Will he draw many votes given his withdrawal and endorsement of Trump? Probably not, but it is an additional marginal effect the Trump campaign would rather not have to deal with. 

While RFK’s withdrawal will have some marginal impacts, one of the fundamentals of this election is now Kamala Harris’ favorability. Whether or not Harris sees much of a “bump” in her ballot position post-convention, she has certainly seen an improved image among the electorate since July. In their final poll before Harris became the Democrat’s (presumptive) nominee, Quinnipiac had her image at a net –14 favorable to unfavorable (37% to 51%), with 11% saying they had not heard enough about her to have an opinion. This week, they released a survey showing her with an even image: 47% favorable, 47% unfavorable with only 5% not having heard much about her.  

Harris has been a deeply unpopular Vice President, so where did that shift come from? Harris had the biggest improvement among voters 18-34 who went from only 20% favorable to 52% favorable. Her image also significantly improved among Independents (+16 favorable), Democrats (+15), and women (+13). Harris’ favorable numbers improved across racial lines roughly equally (+10 with white voters, +8 with Black voters, and +11 with Hispanics). But clearly, younger voters are connecting with a candidate much nearer to their age than Biden. 

One interesting effect is that rural crosstabs (and thanks to Split Ticket for compiling this material) on public polls since August 23 shows a D +12 shift relative to 2020 vote. Is that real or a sampling artifact? We can’t be sure yet, but it might be impactful in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, among others, if it holds. We’ll be digging into this one next week! 

Finally, we’d like to point everyone to a nice little resource on public polling by our compatriots over at Pew (Thanks for Scott and Courtney for doing this!). Note in particular the proliferation in contact methods to generate interviews, and the error types not accounted for in the ‘margin of error’ –  which only refers to sampling error. All research is an imperfect representation of the real world, so it is always helpful to be alert to the strengths and weaknesses of the tools you’re using. Cross-reference and triangulate whenever possible to gain the most wholistic view you can! This is a good resource to share with your friends and colleagues who may not be as familiar with the polling world.  

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Conor Maguire (cmaguire@wpaintel.com)

WPAi Weekly Update – August 23

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The Democrats have finished their convention, and the Harris/Walz ticket is officially official. The Democrats are undoubtably happy with the attendance, energy, and attention from the convention. Some of the show timing was a little odd – it isn’t often that both the sitting President of the United States and the party’s current candidate both take the stage after primetime on the east coast – but the response from the party faithful seems to have been very positive. Politico has a good topline here for the overall swing since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

With 74 days left we are now in the final sprint. Some words of caution from the Democratic side on getting too optimistic based on some of the public polling can be seen here.

Moving to the battle for control in the U.S. Senate, let’s start in Arizona. The latest New York Times/Sienna has Harris up 4 here now (right around the MoE). In a state where just over 20% of the electorate is Hispanic Harris’ 6% improvement over Biden in the crosstab is important here, as are her movements with Independents and women (particularly non-college educated women). This is a change from a minimal Trump advantage in previous weeks, so we’ll see if it is sustained. On the Senate side it is safe to say that Democrat Ruben Gallego enjoys and advantage. Last week had the race Gallego +2%, the New York Times/Sienna had it at Gallego +9%. (Much of that difference is likely attributable to a difference in the Likely Voter universe. If there is interest, we can look at how registered voter vs likely voter surveys are constructed, and the tools used in establishing a likely voter universe.)

As mentioned last week, Pennsylvania is razor-close at the Presidential level. (With Kennedy a factor vs. a head-to-head race). In the Senate race, however, every public poll in August has Casey ahead. We don’t have anything new to add this week. When you dig in the breaks for independents, college+ men, and less than college women all favor the Democratic candidate over the generic party expectation.

In Montana we have seen a surprising amount of money spent or reserved on media buys – closing in on $60 million on each side, according to our friends at National Media. Those are impressive resources when you are trying to reach a total population of only ~750,000 voters. The last two polls released here have Tester +5 and Sheehy +6% – and were in field at the same time. Make of that what you will, though this may be a response rate phenomenon so let’s keep an eye out.

It’s worth taking a quick look at some Presidential battlegrounds with no Senate races this year in Georgia and North Carolina. In Georgia we find the Presidential race close, with results across all released polls showing anything from a tie to variety of small Trump leads. Even those leads of a few points are much less than Trump’s comfortable leads against Biden. Harris’ 10%+ movement with Black voters looks to be at the root of this change.

In North Carolina we have seen results ranging from a Trump +3% to Harris +4% in the past 10 days. This is a state the Democrats haven’t won in the Presidential race since 2008 and were not expecting to win this year either. If they manage to do so it would enormously complicate the electoral college math for the Trump campaign, but would be a major shift to sustain through election day.  Also to note, the underperforming Republican Gubernatorial campaign of Mark Robinson is consistently failing to break 40% in statewide LV polls. This might prove a drag for Trump at the Presidential level.

Also worth a little thought are the results of the Washington primary earlier this month. Washington uses a ‘jungle primary’, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the November ballot regardless of party affiliation. The combination of this structure and the August timing has made Washington something of a bellwether for recent cycles – much to the excitement of Democrats following their D +16% popular vote performance in the popular vote this time. So, what happened?

Using an individual voter history-based approach, increases in turnout seem to be driven by new movers. In particular, it looks like postgraduate educated new movers in high tech sectors. As a result, this year’s primary probably skews more left than previous years, so we should be cautious about the wider applicability of the result. We also see turnout dropped in more rural and suburban areas, particularly when not bolstered by the Seattle media market.

 

This is a red flag for Republicans in the Midwest: if populations the GOP is counting on are turning out at a reduced rate, then a concentrated and effective GOTV effort may be required with audiences not currently included on high-priority GOTV targeting lists.

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Connor Sandagata (csandagata@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Conor Maguire (cmaguire@wpaintel.com)

 

WPAi Weekly Update – August 16

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No earth-shattering news on the campaign trail this week, just ordinarily frantic campaign action. As a result, the public polling has had a chance to catch up. We are going to take advantage of that to walk through the ‘state of the race’ this week, both nationally and in some of the battleground states. This is an opportunity to look at some of the demographics we flagged for you all last month and see if the shape of the race is changing.

 

National Overview

Looking at the race nationally, YouGov has Harris up 2 points. Monmouth shows her leading by 5 points, rooted in a 39-point increase in their tracked ‘voter enthusiasm about the race’ question among Democrats. The Monmouth poll fielded August 8-12, which supports the thesis that the surge in Democratic enthusiasm about the election since Biden stepped down as the candidate is a lasting effect.

 

Battleground States Focus

Bearing that in mind, let’s focus on the battleground states that will determine the result: In five of those states, the Cook Political Report finds Harris ahead, including North Carolina, with Trump leading in Nevada, and a tie in Georgia. In crucial Pennsylvania, the average margin of public polls is now Harris by less than 2 points, a statistical tie.

Equis Research released toplines for a poll of swing-state Latinos that shows Harris nearly quadrupling Biden’s lead from 5 points to 19 points. While this is a major shift in favor of the Harris campaign, it is still below Biden’s 2020 mark. Perhaps more importantly, it is driven to a notable extent by new voters – and both parties have learned about the volatility in both voter turnout and intent from new voters.

With a few weeks’ worth of data in, it is fair to say that the transition to Harris has salvaged Democratic prospects and returned us to the expected close race.

We will be looking into the Senate races next week – there is a lot to unpack there.

 

Texas Public Policy Foundation Polling

Some of WPAi’s polling was released by the Texas Public Policy Foundation this week. We were digging into attitudes to education and curriculum. When looking at the appropriate role of religious history and stories in the school curriculum, the polling found nearly two-thirds of Texans (64%) supported “the inclusion of historical religious stories and examples into state-provided curriculum,” while 33% opposed including the stories. Three-quarters (75%) of Black Texans supported it, as did 59% of Hispanic Texans.

We also gave respondents two statements regarding the stories that were currently included in the curriculum and asked them to choose which statement came closer to their opinion. One statement said, “people say that knowledge of religious stories from different faiths can provide students with a greater understanding of the development of Western culture, art, and history.” The other statement said, “other people say that providing passages from the Bible in state schools has the potential for religious indoctrination.” Fifty-eight percent (58%) of respondents said the religious stories gave students a greater understanding, while just a quarter (25%) said they had the potential for religious indoctrination. Changes in attitudes to education since the outbreak of COVID-19 are a book-length topic, and we may return to that at greater length when time and the election allow.

 

Want to talk about the data more in-depth? We’re here to talk.  

 

Alex Muir (amuir@wpaintel.com)

Amanda Iovino (aiovino@wpaintel.com)

Conor Maguire (cmaguire@wpaintel.com)

 

WPA Intelligence Releases 40+ New Data Dictionary Models

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WPA Intelligence is proud to announce the release of our newest set of industry-leading political models, now available for purchase on Bonfire. These models represent the culmination of extensive research, development, and rigorous testing to bring you the most accurate and comprehensive political data on the market today.

The new models provide segmentation across a wide range of topics including views on President Biden, opinions on Congressional priorities, perspectives on international aid, preferences for Republican candidates and factions (e.g. dramatic disruptor vs experienced strategist, MAGA, Establishment Conservative, etc.) party switchers, religious affiliation, and opinions on key issues like abortion and Donald Trump’s role in the GOP.

In total, this release includes over 40 new Data Dictionary models encompassing voter sentiments, priorities, affiliations, and behaviors. As always, our models are subjected to rigorous methodology, transparency, and ongoing accuracy testing.

If you’d like to discuss which model(s) would work best for your effort, contact us today!

See our full list of cutting-edge models here.

Available for license and integration through Bonfire today!

In Case You Missed It – Coverage of WPAi’s latest national survey of GOP primary voters

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Our latest poll of the 2024 Republican primary has been featured in over a dozen publications. The survey, which was conducted February 13-16, found Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading the field of 2024 GOP primary voters.

Here are some of the highlights of the news coverage:

WPA’s CEO Chris Wilson joined HillTV to review the poll results and explain some of the nuances of polling GOP primary voters.

Politico: Poll shows edge for DeSantis in clash with Trump Media Outlet: Politico

A new poll shows Gov. Ron DeSantis leading a crowded Republican primary field and running ahead of former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical matchup. The survey of 600 likely Republican primary voters in Florida was commissioned by Firehouse Strategies and 0ptimus.

New York Post: Ron DeSantis leads GOP primary, beats Donald Trump: poll

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading a crowded GOP primary field for president, according to a new poll — and he would beat Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

The study was also featured in a Fox News article about the race

A recent WPA Intelligence survey found Haley had the third-most support in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary, with 8% of people selecting her as their preferred candidate. In the poll, Haley fell well behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who received 44% support, and Trump, who was the preferred presidential nominee of 31% of respondents.

Daily Mail: New poll: Ron DeSantis wins 9-candidate GOP primary field with 40% support

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken a commanding lead in a new poll of potential Republican presidential candidates, winning 40% support in a nine-person field.

CNN: This is the dynamic duo that could decide the 2024 GOP race

“Trump does seem to have a special ability to make this sort of populist appeal [to non-college voters] and also have a special ability to make college-educated conservatives start thinking about alternatives,” GOP pollster Chris Wilson said in an email. “I think we’ll continue to see a big education divide in his support in 2024.”

Washington Examiner: DeSantis leading Trump and wider field: poll

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading a crowded field of potential Republican presidential contenders in 2024, according to a new poll that shows him ahead of former President Donald Trump.

MSN: New poll: Ron DeSantis wins in a 9-candidate GOP primary field with 40% support

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken a commanding lead in a new poll of potential Republican presidential candidates, winning 40% support in a nine-person field.

Daily Wire: Inflation, Immigration Most Important Issues For GOP Primary Voters: Poll

Inflation and illegal immigration are top of mind for Republican primary voters, according to a new poll asking what they most want presidential candidates to tackle. The WPA Intelligence poll showed 1,000 Republican primary voters a list of 13 issues facing the U.S., and asked respondents to choose which of the issues was the most important for presidential candidates to address. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said “inflation or rising prices” was the most important issue. The other issue that broke double-digits was illegal immigration, with 27% of respondents saying it was the most important.

Daily Caller: DeSantis leads polls against Trump and rest of field for 2024

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the clear favorite for Republican voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary field that includes former President Donald Trump.

Bloomberg: Trump, DeSantis Square Off in Palm Beach With Dueling Donor Events

DeSantis is making moves suggesting he’ll run, selecting top campaign staff, identifying operatives in key states and traveling to raise money and build his brand. DeSantis enjoyed the most support among nine potential GOP presidential primary candidates in a recent WPA Intelligence poll. The survey of 1,000 voters, conducted Feb. 13-16, showed him backed by 40% of respondents, compared with 31% for Trump.