The Daily Signal - Scott Rasmussen's 2024 Election Breakdown: Polling Surprises and Swing State Showdowns

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Scott Rasmussen shares his insights on the latest polling data and discusses the political landscape as the presidential race enters the critical month of September.  With only small margins separating Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in swing states, the presidential race remains highly competitive with no clear leader emerging yet. Several of those swing states—Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia—are up for grabs, while the prize of Pennsylvania appears likely to determine the outcome of the election.  Rasmussen also examines Harris' rise as the Democrat nominee after Joe Biden's withdrawal, analyzing her policy positions and the public's reaction to her candidacy. Harris’ policy proposals, such as unrealized capital gains tax and price controls, are generally unpopular. Rasmussen notes that voters still have strong opinions about Trump, and despite his policy advantages, some remain hesitant to vote for him.  The conversation also touches on broader political themes, such as how voters perceive "progressive Democrats" vs. "MAGA Republicans." While neither term is particularly popular, progressive Democrats fare better unless specific issues like border security or parental involvement in education are emphasized.   Rasmussen emphasizes the importance of candidates focusing on issues rather than personalities, using Trump's 2016 campaign as an example where issue-based discourse proved effective.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Biden dropped out, but that was a short-term bounce. And right now, the race in many ways is like it was in the Trump-Biden numbers, with the exception that people know very little about Vice President Harris. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, September 5th. I'm your host, Rob Lewy. And that was the voice of pollster Scott Rasmussen. He shares his insights on the latest polling data and discusses the political landscape as the presidential race reaches a critical point two months before election day. With only small margins

separating Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris in crucial swing states, the presidential race remains highly competitive with no clear leader emerging yet. Rasmussen helps you understand what to watch and how to interpret the polls that you see down the stretch. Stay tuned for our interview right after this. Conservative women are problematic women. Why? Because we don't adhere to the agenda of the radical left. Every Thursday morning on the Problematic Women podcast, Kristen I, Cammer, Lauren Evans, and me, Virginia Allen, are joined by other conservative women to break down the big issues and news you care about. Whether you're interested in hot takes and conversations on pop culture or what Congress is up to, Problematic Women has you covered.

We sort through the news to keep you up to date on the issues that are of particular interest to conservative leaning that is problematic women. Find problematic women wherever you like to listen to podcasts and follow the show on Instagram. We're joined today at The Daily Signal by Scott Rasmussen. He's the host of the Scott Rasmussen show on Merritt Street at airs 10 a.m. Sundays and founder and president of RMG Research. Scott, thanks for coming back. It's always good to chat with you. Well, you have some new numbers and this is the time of you.

post-Labor Day when the American people start paying attention to political races and campaigns, at least historically, that's what we're told. And so this is when I expect that pollsters will face a lot more scrutiny for the numbers that they're coming out. What can you tell us about the state of the presidential race here at the beginning of September? Well, as we head into September, the race is too close to call. Anybody who tells you that they know who's going to win is either relying to you or deluding themselves. We've done a lot of polling on this race. The last four weeks, our polls for the Napolitan News Service have shown Donald Trump at 49 percent three times and 48 once. Harris has been at 49 percent twice. She's been two points lower than that once, two points

higher than that once. So it's a toss-up situation. And the reality is what happens between now and November 5th will determine who the winner is, not divining details from polls at this point in time. And now, Scott, those are national polls that you're talking about. Is the same true for the six or seven swing states that will likely determine the outcome in the electoral college? Yes, right now, if you can look at lots of different polls, there's lots of different numbers, but overall, they're suggesting it's pretty close. And, you know, a small difference in Pennsylvania could determine who the next president is. But, you know, and I would guess if I had to that that is the single most important state.

The difference between now and when Joe Biden was in the race is that the four southern swing states are potentially back in play. You know, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia, I would still anticipate that Donald Trump is slightly favored in those. But I wouldn't bet a whole lot of money on it because it's still very close. Donald Trump came out of the Republican National Convention in July, riding a pretty big high, obviously coming off of the assassination attempt on his life, naming J.D. Vance as his running mate, you know, really a remarkable week of unity in Milwaukee. And then, of course, Joe Biden just days later decides to drop out of the race and make way for Kamala Harris. Now, she picked Tim Walts. She had her convention. Did we see much of a bounce coming out of her convention? Or how much should we factor in? into this media makeover, if you will, of Kamala Harris, who wasn't exactly all of that, you know, there wasn't exactly a lot of enthusiasm in months prior to Joe Biden's decision. And it seems like in the course of the past 30 days or so, she's had quite a turnaround. She has.

You know, I think the first thing I would say about both conventions is the vice presidential pick, perhaps on both of them represented a little overconfidence. I think President Trump thought he was going to win no matter what against Joe Biden. he would have. Vice President Harris, I think, was riding that high and think she could win no matter what. And that to me is just perhaps, you know, there will be lessons learned and people will talk about those choices afterwards. What I think happened was Americans have told us for the last couple of years, they don't want a Biden-Trump rematch. You know, that was just like, oh, do we have to go through this again? Two, you know, older gentlemen arguing about these things.

a replay of the pandemic year. And when Biden dropped out, Harris got just the sigh of relief from a lot of people. Thankfully, it's not Trump Biden again. A lot of Democratic voters came home, all the natural constituencies came home. Younger voters became a little more enthusiastic. The minority turnout shifted a little bit more in her direction. But that was a short-term bounce. And right now, the race in many ways is like. it was in the Trump-Biden numbers, with the exception that people know very little about Vice President Harris. They don't know her policies. They don't have an opinion of her. You know, Donald Trump, on the other hand, people perhaps know more than they want. They have

very strong opinions about him. And does that mean that when you cited those numbers earlier, the 48, 49 percent, it doesn't seem that Trump can quite get above that. Is that because their views are locked in already based on what they know about Trump? Yes, absolutely. Look, if you take the policy positions, if you ask voters, who do you trust on certain issues? Donald Trump is generally trusted more than Kamala Harris on the top issues dealing with the economy and immigration. If you were to take the job approval numbers of President Biden and recognize that Harris is defending that administration, you would also say Trump should have a big advantage here. But there are some people who even though they might prefer his policies just can't bring themselves to vote for the former president.

Now, I'm glad you brought up the issues. The Napolitan News Service has done a series of polls on those issues. You cited a couple of the top ones. I've noticed a change in the numbers in terms of how Trump was handily, in some cases, by double digits beating Joe Biden versus a much narrower gap with Kamala Harris as the opponent. what can you tell us about the shift in the issues? The biggest shift has come on the issue, on the economic issues, inflation and other economic concerns. There's a very slight preference for Donald Trump right now, typically about a three-point swing. And we're testing this each week. I think Kamal Harris got real good points for actually

talking about inflation. Now, her plan for price controls isn't all that popular. The idea of giving a $25,000 grant to first-time homebuyers, people think that sounds okay until they realize who has to pay the cost. So again, you know, these issues themselves may not be all that popular, but she did talk about issues, and that's a really important thing. The one that I was most surprised by on the issues, we just released this, it has to deal with her unrealized capital gains tax. Now, this is an issue. Normal people don't sit around the sports event and discuss unrealized capital gains taxes. So we had to describe what the issue was and how taxes are handled. And it turns out about 14 percent of voters favor the plan for taxing unrealized capital gains.

But the one that surprised me, the part of the poll that surprised me, 25 percent say those gains shouldn't be taxed at all. Quite a, quite an outlier position, if you would, compared to the consensus in Washington. Yeah, well, and I think this is one of the reasons that we've heard people say that Donald Trump really should focus on the policy issue, is not so much her personality, because when you look at her record and when you look at some of the positions, they are deeply unpopular, the problem is that there are a number of Americans who simply don't pay attention to that level of detail. And you've documented to this in our past conversations that there is a wide swath of Americans who simply won't go that deep. And so if you're in a position as a

pollster, like, do you think that that'll shift as we get closer to the election or do we just have to be realistic that people aren't going to pay attention to policy as they may have once done 10, 20, 30 years ago? Well, I don't think they're going to pay attention to deep. policy issues, but they will get some themes. I mean, typically about 8% of voters talk politics daily. That will increase as we get closer to the election. But I think President Trump could learn a lesson from candidate Trump in 2016. In 2016, and it's shocked a lot of people after the election was done, the analysis showed that Donald Trump talked about issues a lot. Now, they were issues that the elites didn't care about immigration and other things. But he did talk about issues of concern to voters.

Hillary Clinton talked about Donald Trump. And since she didn't address issues, and since she embodied the, you know, the political establishment, that was her downfall. President Trump, if he wants to draw voters' attention to issues, he needs to stop talking about who the better looking candidate is or any of those things and talk about these policy issues. Yeah, well, it was even quite clear. I mean, the Republican National Convention barely mentioned Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. And at the Democratic convention, Donald Trump came up almost in every single speech. So, yes, that is right on point. Scott, one of the other things that I found fascinating about some of your recent polling is you looked at the term progressive Democrat versus MAGA Republican. What can you tell us about those two terms and how voters perceive progressive Democrats versus MAGA Republicans?

Well, if you ask in general about the two, you know, there's a partisan tinge to, neither term is terribly popular with the general public. But if you give voters a choice between voting for a congressional candidate who's a MAGA Republican or a progressive Democrat, well, they're going to pick the progressive Democrat by a pretty wide margin consistently. Unless you begin to talk about issues. So, you know, in our more recent research on this, we talked about who you're supporting in the Mideast conflict. And if the progressive Democrat is seen as supporting the Palestinians and Hamas, voters overwhelming will say, well, forget that.

We're going back to the MAGA Republican. And, Rob, the difference here is traditional Republicans really have a hard time embracing the MAGA movement. That's where the disconnect is. Traditional Democrats, they're not as offended by the progressive Democrats. at this point. But if they learn the position and say, just to pick a few issues, progressive Democrats support for men playing in women's sports, progressive Democrats like Terry McColliffe who want to keep parents out of the decisions in their children's education

or even on border security, I mean, that's where I think probably you draw a big distinction between the two. Absolutely. In fact, if you draw attention to those issues, they're all very unpopular positions held by progressive Democrats. And importantly, they're not just offensive to Republicans. They're also offensive to traditional Democratic voters. Scott, we just observed, obviously, Martin Luther King's speech, a very famous speech in which he talked about judging people by the content of the character, not the color of their skin. Kamala Harris has made a point previously, not so much recently, about focusing on equity over equality. You've done a study on this, and it seems that the Harris position is quite unpopular with the American people.

Very much so. I should point out, by the way, my monologue for this coming Sunday show is going to be on that speech and the lessons we can learn from Martin Luther King on that. All of the lessons, not just the ones we like, but it's really an important topic. But what we did in honor of that, we did test a variety of messages and questions about equality and equity. and basic founding ideals. And we gave voters a choice between a candidate whose favorite equality, who said we should all be treated equally, and another candidate who said, no, equality is not enough. We need equity so that we all end up in the same place. And the numbers, you know, more than 70 percent said, well, I want equality.

And this is something we've seen for years. We've done a number of different polls on different issues that have arrived. risen, and there's always about 15% or so who say, yeah, equity is the way to go. But that's 15% is not growing. And I think it's something that, you know, equality and equity, if you say it quickly in a speech, people don't pick up on the distinction. But if you begin to listen to the policies, the equity position is very unpopular. Yes, it certainly seems that that is the case. One of the other things that you and I've talked about in the past, and I'm just curious if you've had any new research on it, is the elite 1%. Those individuals who are very much in the power centers in New York or California or Washington, D.C., but they don't necessarily identify or relate to the everyday American.

Any new research you're able to share with us on that group of people? Well, Rob, I never knew you to be such a master of understatement. When you say they don't necessarily align, they're diametrically opposed. You know, we did a survey related to that project of managers of the federal government. So people who live in the D.C. area and are working for the federal government at a managerial level. And let's start by saying their views are much more closely aligned with the elite 1% than they are with the American people. And there's some deeply disturbing findings in there. We asked, for example, we asked these government managers, suppose you do. decided a regulation was needed, but you knew that the vast majority of voters were opposed to it.

What would you do? And most of them said, we will ignore the voters and implement the regulation. Not really too much about consent of the governed in that response. Fifty-three percent of these government managers believe they should have the authority to censor social media posts. 51% of them believe we have too much individual freedom in America. So again, a lot of these attitudes are similar to what we saw in the elite 1%. But these are the people in the administrative state who are actually implementing these policies. Well, and these are issues that are really at the center of this election. I mean, you touched on their views on free speech, for instance.

I know that RFK Jr. and his endorsement of Donald Trump made free speech a big issue. we've seen that come up with Elon Musk and the different approaches. Tim Walts has commented on it. But when it specifically comes to those government managers, you know, one of the other things that's at stake is Trump wants to really reform the administrative state in a way that has, you know, really spooked the left. They point back to these independent civil servants, not necessarily who are going to align with the president's view.

And I think that's fundamentally what the American people will probably ultimately be deciding this election on. So thank you for taking a closer look at where they stand so we can better understand their perspective on the issue. Well, you know, Rob, that is a core question that we're facing. It's been an argument brewing for a little over a century. But we have the founding ideals that we all cherish of freedom, equality, and self-governance, embodied by the Constitution. And that's what most Americans think of is the way government should work,

that you get your legitimate authority from the consent of the government. But in the late 19th century, a progressive movement began that thought we should have independent experts who were insulated from voters and who were trained at special elite schools make the decisions. And there's an awful lot of people in that elite world who think that's the way it should be done. We don't think voters are smart enough. They shouldn't have a voice in this. And I've been trying to think of polite ways to say it. But it really, if you believe those views that we should insulate government officials from the voters, we should let experts decide, you are rejecting America's founding ideals. Yes. Well, that is well said, Scott. Let's talk about another group that belongs to that elite 1%. And those are the journalists who covered the news. You've also had some recent numbers that show that the American people, both Republicans and Democrats, by the way, think that the media are serving as cheerleaders for Kamala Harris.

Yes. What can you tell us more about that? Well, you know, if you ask about journalists, when Walter Cronkite was, you know, the national example, they would have said they're impartial. But voters now believe that most political journalists, and by the way, political journalists on both sides, cheer for their candidate. They want to help their candidate rather than reporting news fairly. And a plurality of them say, if a reporter found something that would hurt their favored candidate, they bury. the story rather than report it. And by the way, that's just shocking from a journalistic perspective. And yes, when we ask which side they're favoring, most say the journalists are cheering for Kamala Harris. Not really a shock there. It's been that way for a long time. But a lot of times we do these

numbers, and they're not shocking in what they actually tell us, but it's always stunning to see it numerically in front of you, just how aware people are of these problems. Well, they're They are aware. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I think the trust in media is so low. But the evidence is in front of us. I mean, every day for literally the last 40 days, 40 plus days, I mean, we've seen story after story where you can see that clear contrast between how they handle Trump versus how they handle Kamala Harris. If Donald Trump had avoided media interviews for as long as Kamala Harris did, there certainly would have been a lot more scrutiny on him, at least in my perspective, coming as one of those

reporters who covers the race. Let me ask you this finally, Scott. We have talked in the past about your unique approach to doing polling. You call it counter-polling, really trying to reach beyond what other pollsters do in terms of understanding the sentiment of the American people on a number of issues. I just wanted you to leave us in our audience with your thoughts today on the state of polling, how you approach it maybe versus other people. And as they see a lot more coverage of polls in the coming two months, how should they go about observing them, reading them, and reflecting on them? You know, when people talk about polls, especially during an election season, all they're thinking about are the horse race polls. And if that's what you're focused on, step number one is look to the averages.

Don't just pick the polls you like. You know, I tend to like to follow my own polls. But I still look at the averages because you learn something from. that. And if the average says one candidate's ahead by a point or something, you call it a toss-up. You know, that's the reality of the world that we live in. So on that front, the problem is activists want to, they want perfection. They want you to be a guru and tell them who's going to win by a tenth of a point. That's not the way polling works. What polling will tell us this year and the horse race is which states at the end of the day are closest and will decide the presidency.

And they'll probably tell us where to look for turnout. You know, if this group turns out a little more or a little less, it'll decide the election. What I, and I believe, by the way, most polling today is better than it was in the 20th century ever. you know, some people talk about shy Trump voters because they underestimated his support. There's a little bit of a myth to that. But if you really want to see a candidate who was overestimated in the polls, it was Bill Clinton back in the 90s. The numbers were off the charts compared to anything we see today. You know, there's this idea that polls have somehow gone wrong, I think, is actually a changing expectation that they want you to be right within a

point on every poll. Having said that, the biggest problem with polls is on the issue side of things, or understanding the American people. Most political pollsters talk in the language of a Georgetown cocktail party. They start off by the discussions that are important in Washington. They want to know which team people are on, and they use words like woke and CRT and intersectionality that have no meaning in the general public. So what we try to do is if we see an establishment poll with some of that terminology, our counter-polling approach is to actually talk about the underlying policies or talk about it in language that everyday people will use. And you get vastly different results because you're trying to speak a language that somebody will understand. And Rob, here's the problem.

if you do a poll, actually I gave the example earlier, unrealized capital gains taxes. If you ask that as a polling question, do you favor or oppose Kamala Harris's position on unrealized capital gains? Most people have no idea what you're talking about. If you put the Harris name in the poll, Democrats are going to like it, Republicans aren't. If you leave her name out, it'll be a little more muddied.

So you ask that question, you get your results and you assume that the people knew what you were talking about, then you interpret it based on that, which is all wrong. If you begin, if you take the time to talk about the issue and define it in a way they can understand, well, then you get some meaningful results. And it's a challenging process. One of the things we do a lot is we ask people what words mean. You know, do you know what woke means?

What is it? And then we ask them in their own words to flesh it out. And I think that's some of the most enjoyable work we do, just because it highlights the fact that America and the political world are two nations separated by a common language. Well, we are grateful to you, RMG Research and the Politin News Service for helping to explain and bring the American people this data and as transparent as you are in terms of putting it out there regularly throughout the week. It's fantastic. I strongly recommend that our audience check out your show 10 a.m. on Sundays, Merritt Street. What are some of the other ways that they can follow you and your work? Well, for the Napolitan News Service, just go to nipolitonNews.org. We have fresh data going up every day. And you can follow me. I was going to say on Twitter, on X at Scott W. Rasmussen. Happy to have you there. And also on Instagram. But the best thing to do is go to nipolitan news.org.

And by the way, one thing we've started now, we talk about a lot of numbers on my TV show, obviously. That's part of what the show is all about. But all the data that we mentioned on the show is now released on napolitannus.org so you can follow up and see the original data. That's fantastic. Scott, thanks so much for being with us today. Appreciate you coming back and spending some time with the daily signal to explain the current state of the race and some of the other issues. that we're seeing front and center. Best wishes to you, and we'll continue to watch.

We'll look forward to talking again. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. In today's media landscape, it's more important than ever to have a trusted source of news and conservative commentary. That's why we're asking for your support. Your donation helps us continue our mission of delivering accurate, factual reporting on the issues that matter most to you.

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