Fox News Polling Analysis Claims Massive Kamala Lead, Countering Other Polling
Fox attributes Harris’s 6-point lead to a concept called “inefficient vote.”
Last week, Fox News released a poll that found former President Donald Trump up by 2 points nationally, 50% to 48%, a mirror image reversal of results from a September iteration of this poll. Lest any Trump supporters get too excited about this shift, an underreported finding in the latest poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris up by a whopping 6 points in the battleground states that will decide the election. The stated margin of error for this survey is 6.5%. That alone should render this outcome suspect.
This datapoint flies in the face of all public surveys of the battleground states, including those from Democratic-leaning pollsters. As of Tuesday, Trump is leading in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in each of the seven battleground states, and leads by 1.2% overall in these crucial states. Trump’s current leads are as follows: Arizona, Trump +1.8; Georgia, +2.5; Michigan, +1.2; Nevada, +0.7; North Carolina, +0.5; Pennsylvania, +0.8; and Wisconsin, +0.4. Admittedly, these margins are small, but Trump is nevertheless ahead.
JUST IN: President Trump has officially FLIPPED Wisconsin in the newly released RealClearPolitics No Toss Ups Map.
Trump is now leading in all battleground states.
This is HUGE! 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/wD0u3fmA5h
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) October 17, 2024
A glance at the individual polls included in the state averages shows only a few polls with results even approaching 6 points. And the few that do, favor Trump. For example, Quinnipiac, a left-leaning pollster, released a poll of 1,328 likely Georgia voters last week that showed Trump up by 6 points. Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal, whose news division leans a little left these days, found Trump up by 6 points in Nevada. And right-leaning pollster Rasmussen showed Trump up 5 points in North Carolina one week ago.
Since Oct. 6, coincidentally or not the day after Trump made his triumphant return to the site of the first assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, Harris has been on a steady downward trajectory in the seven-state average. Her support has fallen from a high of 48.3 to 47.2, a new low. If her two-week trend line were a stock chart, traders would be running for the exits.
Harris’s latest swoon would be far less worrisome and easier to reverse if she had more time. But two weeks out from the election, it is a troubling development at best for her campaign.
This begs the question: Just how did Fox News pollsters arrive at this inexplicable result?
Well, Fox attributes Harris’s 6-point lead to a concept called “inefficient vote.” According to Fox, Trump is banking extra votes in counties where he doesn’t really need them. The article says:
In other words, while the former president is performing better nationally than he was four years ago, the gains are concentrated in places he is already winning, like Florida, or rural counties.
While Harris may have lost some ground in safe Democratic states like New York, she remains competitive in the battlegrounds that decide the presidential election.
The writers look to the relationship between the Republicans’ strength in the popular vote in the 2022 midterms to their lackluster gains in the House. In the 2022 House races, the GOP received over three million more votes than Democrats (54,506,136 vs. 51,477,313), but won back control of the chamber by only a slim margin (222 to 213).
The article notes, “The GOP banked a lot of votes in areas where it didn’t need them, and just enough in the battleground House races that would give them victory.”
At the risk of being accused of not believing polls that tell me what I don’t want to hear, I looked at Fox’s record for accuracy in the RealClearPolitics pollster rankings. In 2020, Fox had an average error rate of 3.5% in their national polling which favored Democrats 100% of the time.
In state polling, the network’s record for accuracy was even worse. In 2020, Fox had an average error rate of 5.4% in state polls, which favored Democratic candidates 100% of the time.
Their latest poll showing Harris with a 6-point lead in the battleground states looks to be an outlier. It is completely out of line with data released by even the most partisan left-leaning polling firms. All current polling shows the presidential race to be either a dead heat or else shows Trump with a slight advantage.
The problem with outliers is that some people believe them.
Thank you I thought I heard it wrong , she did say that !
— Terry Oaks (@TerryOaks3) October 16, 2024
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This is not the first time the Fox News poll tilted in favor of the DemoncRats.
Trump can’t be up 2 nationally and down 6 in the battlegrounds.
Trump can’t be up 2 nationally and down 6 in the battlegrounds.
I understand that, but other polls have him leading in each of the battleground states, albeit within the statistical error of the poll.
Correct. It would be a mathematical impossibility. Trump’s 2020 combined popular vote deficit in CA, NY, MA & IL was almost 9.4M votes. So, he has to make up a WHOLE lot of votes in the battleground states in order to have any kind of lead nationally.
That’s ridiculous. You’re ignoring all the safe Republican states. He’s made big gains in those, which do him no good.
Not saying this result is correct, just that it’s completely possible.
Why not? There are several times more non battleground than battleground states. I pay attention to the polls over on Real Clear Politics. Not because I believe in them, I would think that by now everyone would be skeptical of them considering how consistently wrong they are but because they show overall trends. The trend is that for several weeks now Trump is up, within the margin of error, over Harris in all the battlground states. Trump is also ahead in states that both Clinton and Biden won but Harris is not ahead in any state Trump won. Very bad trend line.
Sure he can. It may not be the case, but it’s certainly possible.
If we had any other Republican nominee other than
Trump, that Republican would be 10 points ahead of
Harris at this point.
That’s one opinion.
I don’t know about 10pts but it would be hard to fathom a race as close as it is with Vance, DeSantis or someone else but that goes both ways. With a good candidate the battleground states would be leaning D not R as they are now.
How come none of the other Republican nominees were able to win the primary?
Did Fox call Arizona for Kamala yet?
Did Harris Defeat Truman?
Fox would seem to be the outlier compared to all the other polls eh 🤷♂️
And they get there with some new fancy word game no ones see used before to boot 😂
I ignore pollsters, do not fail to vote regardless of what they say, just stay the course.
Setting up the steal?
Yeah the left leaning pollsters are caught between having to run operation demoralize and create plausibility around the steal … vs coming back to something closer in the final days so that they can say their poll is accurate
Accuracy for next election is defined only by their final poll of the race not everything leading up to it
However, don’t get complacent. There are a lot of reasons – including vote rigging, Trump pursuing some historically low propensity voters, an October surprise, and more – to do anything but work hard now until Election Day.
We are still being outspent 4-1 and Dems still have a turnout machine to go with their ballot stuffing machine.
(I am not scared, I believe – but I’m taking nothing for granted.
The stakes are too high)
ROI…. return on investment…. spend billions and ballot manipulations gets you the piggie bank of trillions and the power to finally bring Marx and Mao to life.
Yes
Think Paul Ryan in the know
“The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression. The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. Yours. They want to depress the heck out of you.”
-Rush Limbaugh
Very true, it does cause me anxiety
But I’m pretty anxious right about now…
I often wonder what Rush would have to say about the last four years. We could sure use his voice.
I have been following early voting very closely. This is NOTeing. This is baloney.
One can gloat over some favorable Trump poll shifts and attack an unfavorable analysis all one wants. All that matters is the actual vote. It has been obvious that Harris will win for quite some time. Trump has huge negatives and Harris acting like a dope is a big plus with women. Suck it up. She is the next president.
If you’re so confident in this outcome you should put some money on her at the prediction / gaming sites. You’d clean up.
Before people knew how F-ing stupid she was, I thought she had a chance.
Now everyone knows how F-ing stupid she is. She cannot possibly win.
Your analysis of Because I Say So is easily refuted by my analysis using your same metrics.
The great thing about predicting doom is that no one ever calls you on your bullshit. If Trump wins you’ll be here pretending that you knew it all along. Comments like yours are low effort and meaningless. You can’t see the future, so stop pretending you can.
Works Cited: CRACK PIPE.
Setting the table for the steal.
This is ludicrous, oranges and apples. It is political trolling, keep in mind that the owner of FOX, Murdock, Jr. and his wife, are leftists and major Commula donors. This analyst looked at local house races where, supposedly, R’s get lots more votes than are necessary to win the district and calls them banked extra votes. Then they extrapolate to a state wide presidential ballot and pretend that these banked votes don’t count. There are no extra banked votes in a state wide presidential ballot. Every vote counts and the majority wins all the electoral votes for the state.
Interesting that Trump just met with old man Murdock this week
Exactly. Just like Clinton’s extra votes over Trump in 2016 came from running away in 6 counties.
In 2021 the Ds did a much better job at redistricting loser states than the republicans did in gainer states. Winning many more of the close races.
the majority wins all the electoral votes for the state
That is not true in every state.
Trump is leading among Latinos, Arabs and maybe even Black Men. He is certainly ahead among White Women who have families.
Yeah but is he leading among the vote manufacturers in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit, Las Vegas, and Raleigh?
That’s what I worry about. There are potentially more votes that registered voters in most of those cities
I’m not sure I understand the “inefficient vote” argument. If I’m reading the article correctly, it is saying that Harris has a 6% advantage specifically in battleground states. Battleground states are, by definition, not a sure thing. If Trump picks up votes in any of them it’s a win.
The explanation that uses New York (a non-battleground state) as an example is silly. You might as well just use Alabama as an example as it’d be the same problem.
Very odd, considering the reversion to “Trump Is Hitler” campaign tactics. It reeks of someone desperate, and not someone cruising to victory.
It might be desperation, but it will be the ONLY reason for any legitimate votes they do get – the emotional appeal to “ZOMG! You don’t want THAT guy!”
We’ve experienced unrelenting, 20%-plus, middle class-crushing Biden-Harrisflation over the past three and a half years, and, a lawless and callous illegal alien invasion, and, these dopes have manifestly miserable, mirthless, entitled, imperially arrogant, witless and nasty crone-harlot-dunce, Harris, in the lead.
As dotard/crime boss, Biden, would say — “Come on, man!!!”
The whole national poll was 870 likely voters. If the battleground state respondents were proportionate to the 870, we are looking at fewer than 160 votes. This is like saying Harris led 84-74. If six respondents had answered differently, it would show Trump ahead by one in the battlegrounds. It is malfeasance to report such a small sample, especially when the poll was not designed to measure at the state-level. For instance, we might also find out if he drilled smaller that each congressional district was supposed to be represented by 2 respondents. However, it would not be a failure of a nationwide poll is some districts had five while others had none.
Also, why didn’t he report the state to state. Maybe we’d learn Harris is up 21 in Georgia (17 respondents to 11) but Trump was up by 100% in Nevada (8 to 0). This is not how polls are meant to be interpreted. You are supposed to figure Trump is ahead within the margin of error–probably ahead about 80% of the time if numerous polls were taken correctly from the same sampling frame on the same night, using the same rules, and an equal probability of respondents being selected and participating.
I know right? There is no ribbon for winning a caucus of battleground states total popular vote.
I could imagine that the harvest machine works very well in a state like PA but fails in Wisconsin.
Whatever ANY of the polls say, we should not become overconfident.
There will be no “Red Wave”, especially if we come to believe that there will be a “Red Wave”.
Remember the 2022 election.
Exactly. The Trump red wave was delusional. I think it will happen again this year.
For HoR you may be correct given the many CD redrawn since ’22 midterms and the creation of several additional ‘majority minority’ CD ordered by various CT decisions. IOW the HoR CD map differs a good deal from the map used in ’22.
For the Presidential race or Statewide races? IMO the ground is very favorable to GoP candidates so long as they can get their voters to the polls.
To talk about a “red wave” when the poll averages are all within margin of error in swing states is silly. The trend towards Trump is there but to think all states will break his way is not credible.
House Republicans earned 3M more votes than the Democrats did. In prior years, that kind of margin generally meant a 10 to 20-seat change. But, gerrymandering is so pronounced now, the split between the left side and right side of the House is going to be very narrow absent a much larger disparity in popular vote….which isn’t all that common, think 1994 and 2006.
Just remember that any poll has a 50/50 chance of being right, and since we are not looking at any race but POTUS, they are either right 100% or o% on this race. Then throw in the fact that most polls are”Push” polls where the sequence of questions is designed to obtain a desired result.
The polls are just there to make a Harris win plausible after cheating.
The idea of “inefficient vote” applies far more strongly to Democrats, who tend to win cities. Kamala will carry New York and California by enormous margins. But the margins won’t get her so much as one extra electoral vote.
Applying this seemingly reasonable idea to only one side makes sense only if the result is predetermined.
I did not understand “are concentrated in places he is already winning, like Florida, or rural counties.”
Why would the counties matter? Was it trying to say ‘more rural votes in solidly partisan states? ‘
If the pollster isn’t showing what is under the hood with the cross tabs, then it’s suspect
A lot of people misinterpret the results of the 2022 election because they don’t take into consideration what happened during the 2020 election. Unfortunately a lot of Republicans got caught up in what was mostly a Democrat/MSM generated meme about the possibility of huge Democrat losses in the House. There were huge Democrat losses in the House, but they happened in 2020, not 2022. 2020 is only the fourth Presidental election where the party winning the White House actually lost seats in the House, and the Democrat loss of 13 House seats (while gaining 3 Senate seats) was the second largest loss of the four behind their loss of 22 House and 2 Senate seats in 1960. Since a major factor in the usual first-term mid-term losses is weak incumbents who can’t win re-election without their party’s President on the ticket it’s pretty obvious that having no such Democrat candidates in 2022 limited the number of seats the GOP could reasonably expect to pick up. It is still worth noting, however, that on net all of the GOP candidates who won in 2020 were re-elected in 2022 since there would have been no way for the GOP to capture the House without them winning.
I find the claim of ‘inefficient voting’ in the Congressional races in 2022 to be suspect for a similar reason. Congressional incumbents, like those GOP members who won in 2020, normally win re-election pretty handily, often facing only token opposition. Seats that turn over to the opposing party are typically won by very small margins. This situation, coupled with the results of the 2020 election, would explain the disparity between the aggregated vote total relative to the number of seats won in 2022.
Also remember to take into account how many polls are NOT being taken by voters. I get a carp-load of them in my texts every day. We get phone calls all of the time. I don’t answer them. I know a lot of people don’t, for various reasons.
How many of us are die-hard voters (from either side) and how many are sometime voters? How many from each side are fed up with polling?
The polls are notoriously inaccurate, because to the left media polls are for propaganda, and for all media polls are click bait.
Stan, do not read articles about polls…