These kinds of questions lead almost invariably to expressive responding which is valuable information and something we should always dig in to, but it does not have a one-to-one relationship with actual voter behavior. In fact it can deviate quite far from it.
Easy example: “if Trump were convicted of a felony would it change your vote?” At some point you saw as high as 20 to 25% of a Republicans falling into some sort of reconsideration status, but obviously it did not have an impact at all when he was convicted. That response didn’t tell you what they were going to do, it told you what they think they were supposed to value and say. It more reflected on the kind of person they thought they were, which is somebody who cares about justice.
No one is going to openly say “I care about the price of groceries more than the mass murder of innocents.”
What I’m pushing back on is “it wasn’t even close”
Maybe Gaza wasn’t the deciding factor, and obviously we can’t know for sure because this is all hindsight and because polls aren’t necessarily always perfectly accurate for the reasons you said, but I don’t think it should be dismissed. It was close.
Except these people didn’t decide the election, because almost nobody who voted where it matters did this and if every one of them had shown up the outcome would have been the same. Across the six states that flipped from 2020 to 2024, Harris lost less than 80,000 votes combined. She was less than a percent off Biden’s record setting performance. Trump gained more than 800,000 votes in the same places. The block that decided the election was not Democrats ‘staying home,’ it was independant and irregular voters showing up—for Trump.
Good job pretending like you don’t understand that the electoral college exists and why that matters.
And in order to figure what was most important to voters you also have to consider the ones that actually, you know, voted. Which that poll almost entirely ignores.
When Biden 2020 voters cast a ballot for someone besides Harris in 2024 were asked “Which one of the following issues was MOST important in deciding your vote?” they selected:
These kinds of questions lead almost invariably to expressive responding which is valuable information and something we should always dig in to, but it does not have a one-to-one relationship with actual voter behavior. In fact it can deviate quite far from it.
Easy example: “if Trump were convicted of a felony would it change your vote?” At some point you saw as high as 20 to 25% of a Republicans falling into some sort of reconsideration status, but obviously it did not have an impact at all when he was convicted. That response didn’t tell you what they were going to do, it told you what they think they were supposed to value and say. It more reflected on the kind of person they thought they were, which is somebody who cares about justice.
No one is going to openly say “I care about the price of groceries more than the mass murder of innocents.”
What I’m pushing back on is “it wasn’t even close”
Maybe Gaza wasn’t the deciding factor, and obviously we can’t know for sure because this is all hindsight and because polls aren’t necessarily always perfectly accurate for the reasons you said, but I don’t think it should be dismissed. It was close.
Wild. When you dig into those poll results it is sadly clear that Kamala only would’ve won by pivoting right.
Except these people didn’t decide the election, because almost nobody who voted where it matters did this and if every one of them had shown up the outcome would have been the same. Across the six states that flipped from 2020 to 2024, Harris lost less than 80,000 votes combined. She was less than a percent off Biden’s record setting performance. Trump gained more than 800,000 votes in the same places. The block that decided the election was not Democrats ‘staying home,’ it was independant and irregular voters showing up—for Trump.
She got 7 million fewer votes than Biden.
Now I’m not saying the economy wasn’t important, I’m just countering the claim that “it wasn’t even close” - it clearly was.
Good job pretending like you don’t understand that the electoral college exists and why that matters.
And in order to figure what was most important to voters you also have to consider the ones that actually, you know, voted. Which that poll almost entirely ignores.
Okay, so the poll I linked were people that voted. They cast ballots for someone other than Harris.
Lol
So they polled people who were chilling on the internet over the holidays, like 6 weeks after the election
Pardon me if I find Pew more trustworthy
IMEU and YouGov are generally considered credible sources, but okay.
You give them sources they agree with and they still ignore the facts of reality.