Chicago – October 13, 2024
If polls are any guide – and there are many questions about them – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is in better shape now than he was at this time in 2020 and in his winning White House campaign of 2016.
Yes, Trump trails Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in most polls. But the all-important caveat is that he’s down against the incumbent vice president by smaller margins than he faced in his first two general elections – both of which saw him score higher with actual voters than the ones who responded to pollsters.
Certainly, Republicans are counting on what some pollsters have called the “hidden Trump vote,” although pollsters also say there’s no certainty that group still exists. During a rally Wednesday in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed to have a poll showing him up 3 percentage points in the Keystone State, “which probably means 10.”
The Trump campaign, which lost the 2016 popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by a little more than 2 percentage points but won enough states to prevail in the Electoral College, also follows the theory that the closer the national polls in 2024, the better his chances to win more electoral votes.
That’s not a given, the pollsters said.
