I continue to go back and forth as to how I feel about this election. As someone covering this election extensively, there are a lot of reasons to feel confident that Trump will win, and there are also reasons to be nervous. Pollsters are basically giving up, it seems, and are leaning on the election being too close to call because everyone is afraid of being wrong again. That makes this election unique.
I was struck by recent comments that pollster Frank Luntz made on Thursday during an appearance on CNN that former President Donald Trump “clearly” has the momentum in the election, during which he said this election feels a lot like the 2016 election.
"And I think there are a lot of similarities right now between this campaign and that campaign," he said. "The divisions in the country were significant back then, people didn’t think Trump had a chance back then. He’s been gaining and gaining the momentum. I don’t know who’s going to win. I can’t call it, and nobody should, because statistically and polling and focus groups, it is way too close to call. However, the momentum is clearly — in what I see and what I hear — is in his favor."
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Luntz continued, “And so every word, every phrase, every misstep, every gaffe matters as those last remaining persuadables make their decision. I don’t believe in the undecided anymore. I don’t believe there is undecided. I think the only question is, can you be — do you actually come out and vote if you don’t like either candidate? Because that is the vast majority of persuadable. People who don’t like Trump’s attitude, don’t like his persona, people who aren’t still sure what Harris will do in the first day, first week, first month, first year.”
Does this election feel like 2016? Maybe it does to Luntz, but not to me. I spent the entirety of the 2016 campaign convinced that Trump was going to lose the presidential election and that Hillary would be our president for two terms. The polls had her chances of winning as high as 95%. I can still remember watching the election results and how the dread turned to joy as Trump kept winning states he wasn't expected to.
In 2020, I was determined not to be distracted by polls. Sure, they all showed Joe Biden winning easily, but the polls were obviously wrong. They had been in 2016, and they would be again because pollsters can't figure out how to capture Trump's support. This, of course, turned out to be technically true. Trump definitely out-performed the polls, but thanks to the pandemic and the Democrats' mail-in voting strategy, Joe Biden was able to eke out victory hinging on less than 50,000 between three battleground states. Still, I spent most of the election super confident that Trump would win.
Fast forward to 2024, and I'm not letting myself be overconfident again. I'm trying to keep as solid and objective of a read as possible on the election, taking everything I can into account. And it largely leans toward confidence that Trump will win. So in that sense, it doesn't feel like 2016 at all. I never felt this good during 2016. Am I still nervous? Yes, but this feels much better than 2016.
