The Daily Signal - Pollster Scott Rasmussen's Predictions for 2024 Election

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Pollster Scott Rasmussen of RMG Research breaks down the latest polling data eight days before the 2024 presidential election. He explains why former President Donald Trump currently has an edge over Vice President Kamala Harris, analyzes crucial swing states including Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and explains the growing diploma divide in American politics. Rasmussen also reveals surprising insights about elite voters' views, emerging campaign issues, and potential election day wildcards. A must-watch for understanding the state of the presidential race and key Senate battlegrounds. Key topics: Current state of presidential and Senate races Analysis of must-win states Impact of economic concerns on voting The growing education divide in American politics Voter trust in election outcomes Potential October surprises Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If the election were held today, Donald Trump would be likely to win. Now, I say that with some cautions. It's not a sure thing. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, October 28th. I'm your host, Rob Lewy. And those were the words of Scott Rasmussen. He's the president of RMG Research and the founder of Napolitan News Service. He's also a pollster who we rely on quite often at the Daily Signal to give us perspective on what's going on,

not only with the candidates who are running for election, but also the issues that resonate with them. I spoke to Scott today with just eight days left about his final predictions on the 2024 presidential campaign and also some of the Senate races that you'll want to watch. Stay tuned for our interview right after this. Live from Indiana syndicated nationally from the Daily Signal, it's the Tony Kennedcast. Man, you've got me hooklight and seeker. Now I want to tune into your program. Interviews from the border. Coverage from inside leftist riots. Exposing those targeting children. from the guy leaving liberal journalist speechless.

It's the Tony Kennedcast. Join us live on the Daily Signals, YouTube and Extreme every weeknight at 7 p.m. Eastern or anywhere you get your podcasts. We are eight days from Election Day, and there is so much at stake for the presidential election, Senate races, House races, local races. You could go down the list. There are a number of ballot initiatives, and we are joined by Polster Scott Rasmus. and he's the president of RMG Research and the founder of the Napolitan News Service. Scott, it's good to have you back with The Daily Signal today. Rob, it's always great to talk to you.

And, you know, this is always such an exciting time of the year. We've been talking about this election for a long time and now eight days to go. Well, and you are in the field with polls. It seems nearly every day of the week. I mean, the Napolitan News Service has a ton of great information. Really encourage our viewers and listeners to check it out and all of the great research that you are doing to prepare the American people for the issues that I think are top of mind for the voters as they had to the polls. And of course, so many have probably already voted, including myself in Virginia.

So we have a completely different situation than certainly when I was growing up and you were growing up in terms of how people do vote. And we'll get into that a little bit later. But I want to ask you first, who's winning? We're eight days out. Do you have any thoughts about who's in a better position today as we approach this final sprint? Look, I think if the election were held today, Donald Trump would be likely to win. Now, I say that with some cautions. It's not a sure thing. But if you look at the national polling averages and even, you know, what I do every morning? You look at what if it shifts

two points to the left or two points to the right and get a sense of the range of possibilities. It looks like the best, in terms of what the polling is telling us, the best Kamala Harris can do is get to a place where maybe it's a toss-up if she wins the electoral vote by, the popular vote by a few points. So Trump has the edge there. When I look at the state-by-state numbers, he has an advantage. When he look at the data and the political gravity of those states, he's probably going to win, or likely to win Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina. North Carolina, I'm a little nervous about because of the hurricane and the turnout. But if he wins those three states, he's at 262 electoral college votes. And that would mean he needs to win just one of the three so-called

blue wall states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Harris needs to win all three in that scenario. And it could happen. She could pull an inside straight. But right now, you'd have to say the edge goes to Donald Trump. Scott, I've noticed that the national polling averages have really narrowed. Kamala Harris was up by, in some cases, two, three points. They're virtually tight or just within a fraction of a percentage point at this point. Do you see a scenario where she can win if she doesn't win the national popular vote? Is it possible to envision? Yes.

It's very difficult, though. It's much easier to envision a dynamic like we saw eight years ago where the Democrat wins the popular vote by two points. and Donald Trump wins the electoral college. But yes, there are some scenarios that can go the other way. I've been doing this long enough that I don't rule out anything because voters have a way of surprising us. Of course, it has been a number of years. I think the last time that a Republican won, the national popular vote, was 2004, George W. Bush's

re-election. And so Republicans have, you know, struggled when it comes to accomplishing that. And I think as you and I have talked in the past, one of the things that confronts us as a divided country is the fact that we haven't had somebody with an overwhelming victory. Do you see any type of possibility where somebody could just run the table and this could be considered a landslide, at least in today's day and age? Well, we will not have a landslide. I think there's a reasonable chance that either candidate, if things broke their way down the stretch, could win all seven swing states. and that would give the appearance of an electoral college solid victory. I wouldn't call it a landslide.

But look, nobody's won more than 53% of the vote in 40 years. We've had a lot of presidents elected in the last few decades who couldn't even win a majority of the vote, even if they won the popular vote. Somebody like Bill Clinton, who ran twice, won twice, never got a majority of the popular vote. So we have had these close elections. really problematic. It breeds distrust in the electoral system. It builds distrust of the other party. I'm hoping that somebody will come along in 28 or 32 who can actually figure out a way to attract a broader audience. Now, Scott, you mentioned some of those states earlier in your previous answer.

Do you have any must-win states? For instance, if Donald Trump didn't win this particular or these particular states or Kamala Harris didn't win these states, they're in real trouble. What would those be? Well, North Carolina is a pretty critical state for Donald Trump to win. If something goes wrong there, it's probably either a sign of a turnout problem, which is a get out the vote effort, or that something else is going wrong. Again, it's possible that he could lose North Carolina and pull together some other combination of votes, but that would be very difficult. For Vice President Harris, it's Pennsylvania. If Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania, It means he's winning those southern states, and he's very likely to be the next president.

And Kamala Harris, if she wins Pennsylvania, she still has to pull off victories in Michigan and Wisconsin. But I would say that's an absolute must win for her. You have said that personal finances are a key determining factor in the election. And we've seen from your polling that sometimes by a two to one margin, Americans, and particularly people in those swing, states say that their personal finances are getting worse, not better. How much of an issue do you think that that will factor into their ultimate decision on Election Day? Well, you know, I never get tired of quoting James Carville. It's the economy stupid. That's always the driving force of an election. And yes, right now, people tend to think their personal finances are getting worse. And their people in the

swing states are even more pessimistic. So that's a factor that's hurting Vice President Harris. But I've got to put a little caveat in that. Those numbers haven't been getting worse as the years gone on. They've been fairly steady. So I think those numbers are baked into what we're already seeing. And, you know, same thing. 37% of voters tell us that they're better off than they were four years ago. Those numbers have barely moved. So that's kind of set the baseline for this very, very close election. I'd certainly rather be the out-of-power party dealing with those economic numbers. then the incumbent administration. But I don't think anything has changed dramatically or is likely to change dramatically on that front in the last eight days. Well, and on that point, let me ask you this, because four years ago, Donald Trump was running as the incumbent,

and now he's running as the challenger. And so what are the differences that you see between the 2020 election and the 2024 election, particularly as it pertains to Trump and the position that he's in? Well, let's start with a reality that in 2020, 40 million people were thrown out of work by the pandemic and the government lockdown. So that was an unbelievable economic disruption. And perhaps the biggest storyline

that wasn't talked about in 2020 was how close the election was. And Joe Biden won the popular vote by four and a half points. Given that kind of economic disruption, you would have expected something more significant. What we saw in 2020 was, people voting against the incumbent. They didn't like Donald Trump, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of the personality traits that he brought to it. And that was a repeat of what we saw in 2016. People really voted against Hillary Clinton more than they voted for Donald Trump. As we come into 2024, well, now we have Donald Trump again, very well defined. Third time in row, he's run for president. Whether you love him or you hate him, you know,

what you think about him. What has changed since 2020 is we now know what a Biden administration looks like. And the bottom line is voters are saying hasn't been so great. We were better off in some ways under the Trump administration. And that, I think, is causing the shift, you know, of the numbers in Trump's favor. And let's, again, just give a little context. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by two. Joe Biden expanded it. to four and a half points because people saw the reality of a Trump administration. And now, as things are moving back in the other direction, it looks like we're going to be shifting, you know, somewhere to the range back, back to 2016 or maybe even a little more positively for Trump.

All of these shifts are just on the margins. Most voters aren't changing their minds. And I'll make a bold prediction here. In 80% of voters already know who they're going to vote for in 2020. 28 because that's the way our system is. That's why we're so closely divided. Well, okay, so on that note, particularly how the changes, you know, happened just on the margins. In recent days, we've seen Democrats, particularly Vice President Harris, come out with attacks on Donald Trump, calling him a fascist, pointing to John Kelly's, his former chief of staff's remarks. Does that really move any voters at this late stage in the game? I can't imagine it does.

You know, when President Trump was convicted in that jury trial earlier in the year in New York, we finished polling right before that verdict was announced. And 51% of voters just before the verdict was announced said that Donald Trump was less ethical than most politicians. Three days later, after all the news coverage and all the talk about this verdict, the number was exactly the same. Nobody believes that Donald Trump is a choir boy. Nobody is, you know, whatever bad things people are going to say about them, they've already been said. I can't imagine that moves the needle. What is moving the needle in some key Senate races and possibly having an impact on the presidential

race is the issue of biological males playing in women's sports. Some Senate campaigns are running hard on that issue, gaining some traction. And one of the reasons it's effective is to most people, it's idiotic to let boys play in girls' sports. It's common sense. You want to protect women and you want to protect women's sports. But some of the progressive Democrats have a hard time letting go of that issue. And so that's something that is shaking up the race, again, perhaps just on the margins. And, Scott, what are some of the states where you've seen that particular issue have an impact or resonate in those Senate races?

Well, first of all, I live in Texas and it's been an issue here. In fact, Ted Cruz was running a lot of ads. His challenger felt he had to respond. Then when he did, it kind of tried to sound like he was agreeing with Ted Cruz. The progressives attacked him. We also see it having an impact in Wisconsin and Michigan right now. Interesting. Now, I'm glad you brought up the Senate races because we, based on your polling,

I've noticed that even though the race for president is fairly close. in Pennsylvania within, you know, sometimes just, you know, a fraction of a percentage point. The Senate race there, it seems that the incumbent Bob Casey still has a fairly decent lead over the challenger, the Republican McCormick. You have other states, Michigan, you mentioned Wisconsin. Why is it that some of these Republican Senate candidates are not running more competitively when Trump seems to be tied with Harris in those states? Well, I think you have to to talk a little bit about timing first. Our last polling in Michigan and Wisconsin showed the Republican challengers making significant strides. They're still underdogs, but getting

closer. I think part of the problem is President Trump's base are irregular voters. They may not be aware of the names of who's running for the Senate. But part of it is when you're running against an incumbent, Bob Casey has some built-in loyalty. Tammy Baldwin does. It's the same as what we see, say, in Montana with John Tester. The difference is Donald Trump is going to win Montana by like 20 points. He'll probably pull a Republican across. But when you get to some of these other states, the Senate races are getting more competitive. But Trump is still going to run ahead of those Senate challengers just because of the

incumbency and the comfort factor. Yeah, and Ohio is another close day to watch. Your polling has Bernie Moreno, the Republican, up. slightly over Sherrod Brown. Yeah, in fact, if you're talking about, you know, my job is not to be a guru and, you know, tell you magically exactly how these races are going to turn out. I think it's to give a good sense of what's possible. It is unlikely the Republicans will lose any Senate seats. There are a couple of long-shot possibilities, but if they hold all of their seats, they're almost certain to pick up West Virginia and Montana that would give the Republicans

51 seats. Bernie Moreno, I think, will win to be close, but I would give him the edge at least. So that would get the Republicans to 52. And then you've got these other states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, some are even saying Nevada now, that the Republicans are underdogs, but it could move up. So I think we're looking at a range of somewhere between, say, 51 and 55 House Senate seats for the Republicans. If I did have to guess, I'd put the number at 52 or 53 is most likely. But once again, these are all going to be close races. And I'd rather be in the Republican position right now than the Democrats. And it's going to be a question of how big that victory is. You spoke about some of the irregular or different voters that have gravitated toward

Donald Trump that traditionally wouldn't support a Republican for president. Many of them are working class voters. They're people who have struggled with personal finances given the economic changes in our country and things of that nature. Do you see that as a long-term realignment that's taking place between the political parties, or is it really just the Trump effect? Well, I think that depends on where the Republican Party goes after November 5th. I think there's a very real opportunity for the Republicans to become more of that working class party. It certainly fits with the party themes of free market and entrepreneurship and giving people opportunities. And bluntly, I think the reason the opportunity is so big is the Democrats don't seem to want to

be associated with working class voters anymore. They become a very elite party. And that's become problematic. You know, Barack Obama, a week or something, ago gave a kind of chastised black men. How could you think of voting for Donald Trump? And one of his comments he's talked about how, you know, she's just like you. She had the same experiences growing up. She went to college like you and he went on and on. What struck me about that is among college-educated black voters, only 5% of them are considering voting for Donald Trump. Among black voters without a college degree, 19% percent. percent are voting for Donald Trump, but Obama couldn't really even think of how to talk to that

group of voters. Yeah. Well, and of course, we turn to you because you have polled the elite 1% as you call them, and you have pointed out some of the stark differences between their views on certain things. I saw just on the Napolitan News Service website, for instance, that they have fairly opinionated perspectives when it comes to who should be allowed to vote. Can you walk us through some of those differences that I think we need to be aware of? Because in many cases, these elite 1% are not only the people who are running major corporations, but also controlling the information that we receive because they're in high power positions and news organizations as well.

Yeah, the elite 1% are people with a postgraduate degree, very important. People with a postgraduate degree are different than anybody else in the population. Give you a sense of scale. Among post grads, Kamala Harris is winning by about 30 points. Among everybody else in America, including those with a bachelor's degree, Donald Trump is winning. So the post grads are kind of often an island on their own. People with a postgraduate degree who live in a densely populated urban area like Manhattan and who make at least $150,000 a year,

make up about 1% of the population, and as you say, they're very influential. They tend, especially the politically active elites, tend to think the rest of us have too much individual freedom. They tend to believe that parents have too much control over their children's education. They believe the federal government should have the power to censor our social media posts. And what's really concerning is they tend to think that most of the government. Americans agree with them. So they are projecting these views that are wildly out of touch with the American people. And, you know, one of the examples is they tend to think, if you don't have a

college degree, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. You know, and look, if I'm summing it up, this elite 1% has rejected America's founding ideals of freedom, equality, and self-governance. They want a different type of nation. They want a Wilsonian progressive state where people go to special schools. They get trained to be bureaucrats and then they're protected from voters. And that's not what America is all about. Scott, this diploma divide that you just highlighted there, the differences between those who have a postgraduate degree and everyone else. Is that a new phenomenon or is that always existed in our country?

Well, there's always been some sort of a divide, and it has grown. And you also have to realize the number of people with a postgraduate degree has grown dramatically. If you go back, say, to the immediate post-war era, post-World War II era, the number of people with a college degree was roughly the same share of the population as the number with a postgraduate degree today. So we just kind of. to up the curve a little bit. And, you know, there was a time when suburban college-educated voters were thought to be Republican, and that has been shifting. And that's been a shift over about the last four or five decades. One of the great political scientists whose work I loved was Aaron Waldowski. He wrote a book in the early 1970s called The Revolt Against the Masses. And he described, he described, what was happening in the late 60s in the elite academic circles. And what's chilling to me when I read his work is he, it's almost as if my research on the elite 1% is validating what he predicted

would have happened 50 years ago. So he had this sense of what was coming. And what he said is they really detest the values of middle America. And they want to get rid of them. And sadly, that is what we're seeing. But it's also, look, they are 1% of the population. If the rest of us stand up for the founding ideals, if we promote things in a proper manner, it's going to be just fine.

We will win. Well said. Good thing to remember. Absolutely. Right. Yes. Yes. Okay.

A couple of final questions for you, Scott. First of all, you have done polling when it comes to the trust in the outcome of the election. And I think on both sides of the political spectrum, Republicans and Democrats, there's some red flags that we should be aware of before. election day, can you bring us up to speed on what people think if their candidate doesn't win? Yeah, look, 60% of Democrats still believe Hillary Clinton was the legitimate winner in 2016, 65% of Republicans think that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner in 2020. We know that fewer than half of all voters today are very confident that the election results

that the ballots will be counted properly in the correct person declared the winner. And that's really sad. I mean, of all the data that we collect, this is among the most painful to read. People do not trust the results. And if your government derives its only authority from the consent of the government, how do you work that if you don't trust the election results? So I tell people right now that the safest prediction you can make is that the losing team this year, whichever side it is, will believe that the other team stole the election. And that just, leads to lots of bad results. Yeah, it's certainly something that is troubling. It's one of the reasons why for the past four years, there have been a lot of people, you know, working on improving election laws to try to strengthen Americans' confidence in the outcome of elections, but that's your polling shows. I don't know if it's moved the needle all that much. Rob, and I do love all the efforts. It's great to see people thinking we need to improve the election system and make it as solid and sound as we can so that everybody who should be voting gets a

chance to vote and people who shouldn't should be kept away. But there's only one thing that's going to restore trust in our electoral system, and that's a landslide. We need a party to win big so people can feel, okay, yes, the result is something. Even if it wasn't my team, I trust it. And we need to have that again. Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's been what, you know, 24 years at least. Right. A long time, a full generation or more.

Okay, final question for you. Are there any wild cards that could come into play on Election Day that we should be aware of? And by that, I mean October or November surprise or a weather event or something else that, that maybe in the past you've observed has really impacted the outcome of an election. Well, October surprises are always possible and impossible to predict. But if you're talking about things that we might look at, the first surprise I'd look for is the Nebraska Senate race. You know, they've got an independent candidate who's polling very well against the Republican candidate.

I expect the Republican will emerge victorious. I think the political gravity of the state will. will be of benefit. But that's something to watch a little bit. Second, you mentioned weather events. It's happened before and it could happen again. If there's a blizzard in the northeast, I mean, in the upper Midwest, that could have a big impact on the outcome. A state like Wisconsin that has been decided by 20,000 votes or fewer, wow, if there's a blizzard, that could change the outcome. And Rob, you know, this is something we talk about it like it's a big deal because the election is so close. In my little town in McKinney, Texas, about a block from where I'm sitting right now, there's a plaque describing the events that led this to become the county seat and why we have a county courthouse here.

And there was a big dispute apparently over 100 years ago. And they were to have a public referendum on it. And there was a blizzard and only 12 people showed up to. vote and they voted for McKinney. So blizzards do have an impact. It's probably more significant in the presidential race than it was in selecting the county seat here. But that's something you really have to take into effect. I can talk about other races where it's happened in the presidential campaigns in the past. Scott, thank you so much for your insight, particularly going through some of those last minute surprises or things that we should be on the lookout for. Of course,

we'll be keeping close tabs on the new polling from RMG research. And again, I encourage our listeners and our viewers to visit the Napoliton News Service for Scott's latest polling. It's really fantastic. We appreciate you spending time with The Daily Signal. Thank you, Rob. Look forward to talking soon. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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