Weekly Polling Updates Starting Tomorrow
Weekly Polling Updates Starting Tomorrow
A sober, math-based look at who is ahead in the race for the White House
“I’ve got a spreadsheet.”
If you’ve ever worked on a campaign, on Capitol Hill, on the City Council, or in Texas or Alexandria politics with me, you’ve definitely heard me say “I’ve got a spreadsheet.” I’m a big fan of spreadsheets. I’ve worked professionally in politics for 19 years, and throughout that time I’ve grown fairly adept at tracking data and developing a sense of where things stand in a campaign.
And though I’m running for re-election to City Council in November, let’s be honest: the only campaign anyone is thinking about right now is the 2024 presidential race.
Since Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic nominee for President, I’ve been tracking the polls, weighting them by pollster quality and time since completion, and sharing with many of my friends and coworkers where I think the presidential race stands at any given moment.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to post that information here, too. Both to make it easier to share with my friends, and to make it more widely available.
Why weekly? And why not a “forecast”?
Life is busy, and people are already obsessing too much about politics. Publishing updated polling averages every day wouldn’t be a great use of my time or yours, and in many cases there’d be no change. Week to week feels like the best pace to me: frequent enough to pick up on important trends, infrequent enough to ensure that new data actually comes out between updates.
And as for why a “now-cast” instead of a forecast: I think it’s more important to look at who is winning now than to try to project who will win in November, because information about where the race is today gives us a real sense of where more work is needed. If you’re going to donate to a candidate in a tight House race (and you should!) then donating to races in states where the Presidential race is tight can have a multiplier effect.
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My plan is to post each Monday, in the evening, and an email will go out to folks who subscribe at the same time. Life is busy, though, so that schedule might slip a day on occasion.
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