Amid poll flap, celebrities rush final contributions to Harris campaign
By
Byron York
November 4, 2024 5:14 pm
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AMID POLL FLAP, CELEBRITIES RUSH FINAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO HARRIS CAMPAIGN. Here’s the terrifying thing about the political debate that has dominated public life for more than a year leading up to today, election eve: Almost everything we say is based on our reading of polls that may or may not be accurate. It could turn out that nearly everyone, no matter what side, was wrong because we were all building narratives on incorrect data. We could at this very moment be standing on the 17th floor of a giant house of cards. And the wind will start blowing Tuesday night.
As is traditional, a bunch of polls came out on Sunday for a final look at the electorate before Election Day, or at least what’s left of Election Day after all the early and mail-in voting. They showed the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump virtually tied nationally with perhaps a little progress for Harris in the swing states. But overall, pretty much the same situation we have seen for weeks.
The poll that got a lot of attention — the “shock poll,” as some like to say — was from the Des Moines Register about the race in Iowa. Conducted by the highly respected pollster Ann Selzer, whose work has come to be known as the “gold standard” in Iowa, it came with this headline: “Iowa poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day.” Of course, Iowa is not a swing state, and previous polls had shown Trump solidly leading. So to report that Harris was leading Trump by 3 points, 47% to 44%, right before the election was a big deal. If Harris has, in fact, leapfrogged Trump, it would be important in a number of ways, first for Iowa’s six electoral votes but also for similar parts of the electorate in the Rust Belt and “blue wall” states in which the election might well be decided.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/3216629/amid-poll-flap-celebrities-rush-contributions-harris-campaign/
