Ahead of Election Day in the United States, FRANCE 24's Yinka Oyetade speaks to John Zogby, pollster and author of "Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read the Polls and Why We Should". He says that the gender and education gap are the major factors in splitting support for the two candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
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00:00This is Apropos. Now we're now in the final hours until Americans cast their ballots to
00:09choose their next president. Today, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have their eyes on
00:14Pennsylvania, a battleground state seen as critical for victory. The Democratic nominee
00:19will be crisscrossing the Keystone State before closing the night at a rally in the city of
00:24Philadelphia. Her rival, Trump, will be heading there too. Before that, he kicked off the
00:29final day of campaigning in North Carolina, where he told supporters that the election
00:34was his to lose. It's the first of four rallies that he'll be holding today. He heads to Pennsylvania
00:40next before making an appearance in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now, not all votes are up
00:45for grabs, with about 77 million Americans having already cast their ballots. Eliza Herbert
00:51has more now on those who voted early.
00:56Many voting centers are teeming across the United States, but despite the long queues,
01:01the spirit of democracy remains high. We've been here for two and a half hours and the
01:06mood is still great. We are almost there. We're in the homestretch. We got in line around
01:122pm and now it's 6pm Eastern time and we did it. And I'm proud that we added our voice.
01:19With the polls neck and neck, Americans appear anxious to make their votes count. Already
01:24more than 75 million people have cast early ballots, particularly in crucial battleground
01:30states. Records have been broken in Georgia and North Carolina, with some 4 million and
01:354.5 million votes cast respectively. In Michigan, nearly 3 million people have already voted
01:42and in Arizona, 2.3 million. Wisconsin and Nevada have also returned high numbers. So
01:48far, statistics show that women have voted more than men and there has been a larger
01:52portion of rural voters showing up early. But it is still not quite clear which party
01:57will benefit. Four years ago in 2020, a record-breaking 70% of the overall turnout voted early, either
02:05by mail or in person. Democrats were urged to vote by mail to avoid the spread of COVID-19
02:11and ultimately the party gained votes in the counties that returned more mail ballots.
02:16Scenes of chaos then unfolded after Donald Trump doubled down on unsubstantiated claims
02:22of voter fraud and refused to accept the election result. A scenario these expert worries
02:27could be repeated.
02:29The more voting at a distance or voting early, voting sort of out of the regular schedule
02:36there is, the more challenges there are going to be. If everything happens on the same day,
02:42it's harder for the loser, I think, to complain because everybody's following the same rules
02:49on the same day, depending on which state they're in.
02:52Both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have encouraged early voting
02:57this election.
02:59Well, let's get more on the state of the race with John Zogby, who is a pollster and author
03:06of Beyond the Horse Race, how to read the polls and why we should. Thanks so much for
03:11joining us on the program, John. We really appreciate having you on. Now, you've probably
03:15got one of the toughest jobs at the moment right now. It's the last day of campaigning
03:20and final polls show the race couldn't be tighter. Tell us what you're seeing at a national
03:25level.
03:27We just released our final poll and polled nationwide right on up till yesterday. So
03:35there's obviously still last minute trends that could happen. But we do show Kamala Harris
03:41leading by almost four percentage points nationwide. And I think the thing that's most
03:47striking about it is the gender gap and the education gap. She is doing particularly well
03:56among women, even more particularly well among young women. We've talked about a gender gap
04:05in terms of men supporting the Republican and women supporting a Democrat. But among
04:11young women and young men, that gap is 60 plus percentage points. Young men voting for
04:19Trump by over 30 points of a gap and young women voting for Harris by more than 35 points
04:27of a gap. Also an education gap. College educated voting for Harris in really large
04:35substantial numbers. Those with a high school education or less voting for Trump. But I
04:43feel comfortable in suggesting that Harris will win the popular vote. But and I know
04:50you're going to ask this next. This key battleground states are just a big question mark.
04:57Let's go with that. Let's continue that conversation because it is very important. Of course, this
05:01will come down to those all important swing states. Give us a sense of polling there.
05:09It's tied. There's no other way to look at it. When we see, you know, Trump leading,
05:17I'm putting that in quotation marks, you know, by point three or point five or even 1.1 percentage
05:25points. There is no trend line here and there is no gap here. You know, we have a margin
05:32of error in our business, a margin of sampling error. But when you get to races that close,
05:39that's not even within the margin of error. It's just tied. And these seven states, the
05:47southern rim, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and the northern wall, the blue wall,
05:55we call it, for Democrats, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, just too close to call at this point.
06:03You mentioned that the figures very much fall within the margin of error. How much attention
06:09should we be giving these polls, especially on the battleground states, if, you know,
06:13they can't, they're not reliable, so to speak?
06:17Well, they are reliable in the sense that they're showing a very close race. And I think
06:22that's how we need to look at it. So rather than looking at a pollster's final numbers
06:28and saying, oh, Donald Trump is leading in this state by point three, and then tomorrow
06:35or whenever, God knows, he loses by two points, let's not be eager to say, oh, the polls were
06:45wrong. It's a close race, no matter which way you cut it. Now, there could be late-breaking
06:50developments even tonight or tomorrow. But nationwide, I'm pretty comfortable in suggesting
07:01that Kamala Harris wins the nationwide popular vote. But in terms of these key battleground
07:07states, it is still too close.
07:10OK, and give us your thoughts on the Des Moines, Iowa, surprise poll that came out. Harris
07:17has a significant lead, according to that poll. Iowa isn't considered to be a swing
07:22state in this election, but Trump won it pretty convincingly in both 2016 and 2020. The polls
07:30are saying that Harris could win there. How much could that kind of information reshape
07:35the race, do you think?
07:36Oh, it could considerably, because what we learned is that, yeah, as you pointed out,
07:41it wasn't on anybody's list as a battleground state, and here we have a shock. That pollster
07:48and seltzer, I respect as among the best in the business. But the key finding, she discovered,
07:58as we have discovered nationally, is the large turnout of women, especially young women,
08:06and that the utmost importance to them, reproductive rights. That's on the ballot in Iowa. That
08:13brought women out to vote. That could be the bellwether in some of these states. The women's
08:21vote, especially younger women, and that could put Harris over the top.
08:26It's very much a widening gender gap, as you already alluded to earlier on. John, you're
08:32in a position that, you know, we should still be reading these polls. We should still be
08:37relying on these polls. I think it's fair to say that they haven't been as reliable
08:42as they once were. We can see that in the last two elections, where polls underestimated
08:48support for Trump. Many new pollsters have now flooded the markets, and pollsters are
08:54also dealing with this ongoing crisis of falling response rates. Can polls be trusted?
09:01Absolutely. Yeah. Let's not look at a poll the day before saying someone is ahead or not ahead.
09:12Let's look at the trend line. In 2016, the famous race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,
09:19she was ahead by 10, 11 points in some of the battleground states 10 days before the election.
09:26We saw her lead dissipate each day to the point where the day before the election,
09:33she was leading by one or two percentage points, maybe even behind in some states.
09:39Instead of saying, oh, the final number had Clinton leading by two points. Therefore,
09:45she'll win. You need to look at the trend line, the trajectory of the race. The trajectory was
09:51going against her. I think the polls captured that. And I think they're capturing that it's
09:57much too close to call. So yes, polls are good. You'd expect that from me, though, wouldn't you?
10:03Yes. But it's good. It's still good for us to know. John, I'm going to ask you to look
10:09into a crystal ball for us right now. Who do you think is going to win tomorrow?
10:15You're unable to answer.
10:17No. I feel pretty good about the popular vote. It would be polling malpractice
10:23for me to project a winner in the States.
10:26OK. OK. Well, we appreciate your thoughts anyway. Thanks so much for breaking down
10:31the polls for us. We really appreciate your time. That's John Zogby, who is poster and author of
10:37Beyond the Horse Race, how to read the polls and why we should. Thanks so much for joining us on.