The Surge: Can We Trust The Polls?

0:01Hey, everyone. Welcome to a very special pre-midterms live edition of Slate's daily news podcast, What Next?, which is actually a co-production with Slate's excellent weekly newsletter, The Surge, which is put out by my friend Jim Newell, who is here with me. We've got a full house. Hey, Jim. We have a full house. Jim himself. We got Lizzie O 'Leary, my co-host over at What Next? TBD. Even Patrick Reis, Slate's politics editor. So the gang's all here. Hi, guys. Hey. Hi. We're here because we're five days away from the election and just two days away from Halloween. And I feel like everyone is wondering whether this midterm is going to be full of tricks or treats.

0:42Both parties, I got to say, have tricks up their sleeves, whether it's Elon Musk's billions of dollars in advertising or some Democrats scheme to get a Temu Dan Sullivan on the ballot in Alaska. So come Tuesday, the question is, will the blue tsunami wash over America or will it just like disappear in a puff of smoke? Could we see actual consequences for Trump if a blue tsunami does materialize or is he going to shamblin like a political zombie? So let's get into it. But before we get started, one more thing. We're going to be back here, me and Jim, to hash things out Wednesday after everything's over.

1:23I mean, after the voting's over, let's be real people. There will still be things happening, whether we like it or not. So you should definitely sign up to join us there. You just go over to slate.com slash surge live. Okay. Jim, Lizzie, Patrick, we have asked our esteemed viewers for their questions ahead of time. So we're going to try to answer them. Someone is asking, is this going to be recorded and accessible later? The answer to that is 100 % yes. Please come back. Enjoy it with your friends, your family. Put it on the big screen, Jumbotron, whatever you need. We are here. Let's start with tricks because the number one question we got from people who registered for this stream is, are the polls a trick?

2:13Okay, first, just reacting to that, ladies and gentlemen, are the polls a trick? Are they a trick? Maybe, Jim, start with you. Well, the answer is we'll find out. stay tuned i mean there are reasons to believe this right i mean just in the last couple weeks there was a fake poll reported that democratic senate candidate mallory mcmorrow in michigan is like yeah it tanked my campaign so you know tricks most of them are real though most of them are real most of them are real most of their real polls i mean i don't know if the results are real but they are real polls um but i mean let me break it down to the believe them and don't believe them signed.

2:50So yes, I believe them. I think Democrats are really scarred based on what happened in 2016, 2020, to a lesser extent, 2024, understandably so. But, you know, pollsters make adjustments all the time. They're not like this isn't news to them that they've underestimated Trump voters before. So, you know, they wait more by education now by recalled vote in the previous election. They use more methods to try and reach the unreachable MAGA voters. And they also just understand that these polls, because of all these Democrats who are so eager to answer polls, are probably going to, you know, maybe be a little overrepresented.

3:28So they're going to make changes for that. I mean, maybe we should start by like laying out like where the polls are, right? Because they're tight. The polls in general are like, yeah, but like really good for Democrats, which is why Democrats don't trust them. So it just it's it's feels untrustworthy. It feels like we've been here before. Whether rationally or not. It's just like scar tissue. Emotionally. Lizzie, I feel like you have something to say here. Well, no. It's more that I think Democrats are so particularly good at stepping on rakes that they are looking around every corner to be like, ooh, is it a rake?

4:02Can I trust it? Can I be excited about this poll? Which, you know, fair. They've been burned before. Yeah. I mean, it's just so funny to look at this list of questions. Can we trust the Democrat positive polling, Kevin? Larry, how much of the glowing positive blue emails text is hype to motivate donations and how much of it is real? Emmy, could the polls be wrong again? I mean, is it worth us digging into a race or two and talking about what's happening there and why people like both sides of the argument? Like if you look at South Carolina, for instance, where it looks like it's tied. That's wild to me.

4:42That is wild to me. And Patrick, I want to bring you in in case you're feeling left out of this discussion.

4:47Jim Newell: Yeah, I think the flip side of this is given the sort of rake around every corner tendency, there's a possibility that pollers are over adjusting for past failures to account for rural voters. So let me just tee up a giant rake and step right on it. But after consistently certainly underestimating Trump's support in recent cycles. There have been a lot of changes to the modeling, and it's possible that they are looking at the polls from the last era. That said, a Democrat winning in South Carolina, if that happens, one, we're all going to have an early night tomorrow night in terms of who takes control of the Senate, because if it happens there, it's going to happen in a lot of places.

5:28Jim Newell: But I would like to be on record as skeptical of that happening. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, Paige, can you pull up this G.L.A. Morris thing that he sent out today? Because I did think it was really, really interesting. He basically, he's a pollster, he's great, he's fantastic, you should definitely be reading him. And he has this chart, like, what if the polls are off, right, to kind of match this energy that I think we're hearing from listeners and viewers and from maybe ourselves. And it looks at Senate races, right? Like, I'm looking at this, like what if the polls are off the same way they were in the past two midterms?

6:05What if the polls are off the same way they are, they were when Trump was on the ballot? And what's interesting to me about this graphic is that if the polls are off the way they were the last two midterms, it still looks like a really interesting night for Democrats, right? You're still looking at... I put my reading glasses on. You're still looking at Democrats taking North Carolina, You're looking at Democrats winning in Georgia, which, OK, yes, New Hampshire, fine. But Ohio, you're looking at Texas. You're looking at Alaska. You're looking at Maine. So it's still a pretty hardy night for Democrats.

6:43And I look at things like that and I'm like, huh, I think this is why the vibes feel like this. Now, if we have a night where things are looking more like when Trump himself was on the ballot, which is, of course, what Trump is telling people to vote like, then it looks a little less good. And I think another interesting thing about this graphic is that if the polls are off the way they were the past two midterms, you actually might see a Republican win in Michigan, which I think is making Democrats very, very nervous right now. So, Jim, are there particular races you're looking at right now to kind of look at this whole question of the polls, how they're working, whether they're working?

7:21yeah i think the ones that i'm i'm most interested in to see whether they're off are some of the ones in the in the midwest and the plains um ohio i mean it was yeah ohio was right there in your graphic as like that tends to have one of the bigger polling errors so um you know if it's like around four points three or four points that's about shared brown's margin right now i'm also just the size of polling is frequently correlated with how many non-college whites are in the state. So I'm a little skeptical of some of the really rosy ones from Iowa and Kansas. Especially if there's just like a little movement like back towards Republicans at the end, like people put their jerseys back on.

8:03Those races are so close that, you know, just a tiny little thing could put them away for Republicans. Again, I don't know. Who knows anything? Maybe they're missing Democrats more. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. What about you, Patrick? I think I'm hesitant to say this.

8:23Jim Newell: Say it. Yeah. What could go wrong? On the record. Yeah. I think when we look at the polls and when we look at some of these close races, what we see is that we're sort of set up for a gap between expectations and reality. If you would have offered Democrats this scenario two years ago, it would have seemed absolutely miraculous that they'd be contesting all these different states. And so I think there's a possibility that Democrats will have a good night on Tuesday and still feel like they fell short of what they were expecting because there are all these races that are a huge reach that where they could overperform expectations, overperform the polls and still fall short of the win.

9:08Jim Newell: It could be like the night of a million Betos where everyone said like, oh, we did so well in the state relative to usual. And that is. That's it for now. And if you want to hear the rest of this episode, the way to do it is to subscribe to Slate Plus. Unlock Slate Plus now by going to Slate.com forward slash what next plus.