Speaker 1: It's night with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy Boston's Radio.
Speaker 2: All Right, we are two weeks away, two weeks away
Speaker 2: from the from the election of twenty twenty four. The
Speaker 2: election has seemed to have been two years away, four
Speaker 2: years away, or ten years away, and now it's on
Speaker 2: our doorstep with us as Spencer Kimball a polster at
Speaker 2: Emerson College, and again I talk at the troiker posters,
Speaker 2: posters that I believe in, and Spencer is right there
Speaker 2: with Dave Paleologus and John Zogby and what what what's
Speaker 2: your What do you got at this point, Spencer that
Speaker 2: there's so many numbers here that would make your head spin.
Speaker 2: How do you I'm not going to ask you who's
Speaker 2: going to win, because obviously if the election, election is
Speaker 2: not being held today, But what what's the trend? What
Speaker 2: do you see? What do your sense? What do you feel?
Speaker 2: Everybody I'm sure has a rooting interest of some sort.
Speaker 2: Your rooting interest is to be as accurate as possible.
Speaker 3: Correct, You got it, Dan, and thanks again for having
Speaker 3: me as always. Well, it's an exciting time two weeks
Speaker 3: out from the election, particularly in this race that obviously
Speaker 3: got shaken up over the summer, when President Biden drops
Speaker 3: out and the vice president jumps in, we saw a
Speaker 3: lot of movement in those numbers going in the democrats favor. Now,
Speaker 3: it seems over the last four or five weeks they've
Speaker 3: been floating back into the Republican's favor, at least at
Speaker 3: the presidential level. Some of the congressional races have swung
Speaker 3: in different ways, but at the presidential level, it seems
Speaker 3: generally across these states they started to trend back towards
Speaker 3: Trump after him losing ground when Harris initially jumped in.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking at five point thirty eight, which is
Speaker 2: kind of a composite side of the different polls, and
Speaker 2: I look at this the favorable unfavorable. This is the
Speaker 2: combined polls favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump. So
Speaker 2: on January first this year, his unfavorable is fifty two
Speaker 2: point five percent. His favorable was four point two six percent,
Speaker 2: just about a nine point nine percent spread. The latest
Speaker 2: composite basically has his unfavorable a nine point two percent
Speaker 2: spread in the wrong direction. So his unfavorable really hasn't
Speaker 2: moved much if we use January first, you know, as
Speaker 2: a as a starting point. I'm just picking a number
Speaker 2: that you know, he was ten point five unfavorable. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: a ten point five difference he was his unfavorable was
Speaker 2: fifty two point seven. His favorable was forty two point two.
Speaker 2: So again that's a ten point five difference. Now, as
Speaker 2: of I guess the nineteenth of October, which would have
Speaker 2: been Saturday, his unfavorables nine point two. Not much of
Speaker 2: a swing there. And yet if you look at Kamala Harris,
Speaker 2: the same sort of set of circumstances, where can I
Speaker 2: find her?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I got her here. All of a sudden, she has
Speaker 2: had a precipitous drop. Her unfavorable was as high as
Speaker 2: sixteen point eight percent in late June, their unfavorable rating
Speaker 2: and her favorle rating was only thirty six. Now you
Speaker 2: get all the way to today her her unfavorable rating
Speaker 2: is forty seven point two and her favorable is forty
Speaker 2: six point five, almost the same. So that on that
Speaker 2: it would look as if Harris should win because her
Speaker 2: favorable unfavorable is pretty closest, so kind of a forty
Speaker 2: seven to forty seven split, where Trump still has a
Speaker 2: ninety's nine points to the negative.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of unpacked there, Dan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So go ahead.
Speaker 3: We got to remember eight years ago, when Donald Trump's running,
Speaker 3: his favorability is at forty percent. So over the course
Speaker 3: of the last eight years, essentially his favorability number has
Speaker 3: gone up one point every year. And it's almost says
Speaker 3: if America has grown more accustomed to Trump and his
Speaker 3: number has gone up. So that's a bit of an
Speaker 3: issue for the Democrats this cycle, as compared to twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: when you have that messaging where it's more negative on Trump.
Speaker 3: Here he's got a more favorable rating than what we've
Speaker 3: seen anytime in his political career over these last eight years.
Speaker 2: Okay, he's gone up a little bit. Okay, gotcha, I'm
Speaker 2: looking at that. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: So now we got Harris. Harris was the vice president,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of disparaging words that people have
Speaker 3: used over the years for the job of the vice president,
Speaker 3: starting back with John Adams. You know, even Adams you know,
Speaker 3: said it was, you know, not the best job in
Speaker 3: the world anyways. So as vice president, usually you're taking
Speaker 3: like the heat for anything that's not working out in
Speaker 3: the administration. You're usually the attack person on the you know,
Speaker 3: with the media, and it hurts your popularity, and so
Speaker 3: you saw that with Harris. Then when Harris enters into
Speaker 3: the race becomes the nominee, it all changes literally overnight,
Speaker 3: and you see it in those numbers. Now what happens
Speaker 3: is it's a big shake up, and it's kind of
Speaker 3: like people looked at her for the first time as hey,
Speaker 3: could this person be president? And some people are like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I like that, and you can see her favorability goes
Speaker 3: way up. She was in the low maybe thirty seven,
Speaker 3: thirty eight.
Speaker 2: Exactly on July nineteenth, which I think might have been
Speaker 2: the weekend that Joe Biden basically said I'm out, her
Speaker 2: favorability rating was thirty seven point one percent.
Speaker 3: So she springs up there, and it's very similar to
Speaker 3: what happened when she announced her candidacy for president five
Speaker 3: years ago. Her favorability springs up then as well, but
Speaker 3: then over the course of that campaign, which was about
Speaker 3: a couple of months, her favorabilities dropped and just never
Speaker 3: took off. So now we're in this election cycle and
Speaker 3: we've seen a very similar pattern occur, where yes, that
Speaker 3: favorability is up, but now, as you mentioned, she's a
Speaker 3: little bit underwater. The unfavorables are a little bit higher
Speaker 3: than the favorables again right there with you know, within
Speaker 3: a point. And so that's a problem because it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be she's going to be a more favorable candidate
Speaker 3: than Trump. And when we look at these numbers, and
Speaker 3: again these are aggregate numbers, they're not the.
Speaker 2: Emerson right right, right, right, Yeah. And also it looks
Speaker 2: it looks like that, it looks to me like the
Speaker 2: public would love to see two different candidates. Obviously that's
Speaker 2: not going to change.
Speaker 3: No, they're more happy with these candidates than they were
Speaker 3: eight years ago, even though Trump is the same candidate.
Speaker 3: They're happier with you know, they have a more favorable
Speaker 3: opinion of Trump today than they did eight years ago,
Speaker 3: even four years ago. And that's a benefit right now
Speaker 3: for Trump in his brand.
Speaker 2: So so how does you know, you say, okay, four
Speaker 2: years ago, this was before the indictments on.
Speaker 3: This, I mean, you know, opinions change. You know, we
Speaker 3: like some things. You know, times change, and if you
Speaker 3: can stay in the public spotlight, what you know, this
Speaker 3: is a very unique candidacy and that it's potentially you know,
Speaker 3: it's been eight years, it could potentially be four more years,
Speaker 3: which is not something that we regularly see. And so
Speaker 3: he has grown accustom to a lot of American voters.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And there's also the flip side, where you know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of polarization where they dislike Trump. But that
Speaker 3: number has dropped a little bit from where it was,
Speaker 3: particularly eight years ago, but even four years ago, during
Speaker 3: the COVID response, that number was a little bit higher.
Speaker 3: Now it's now that number is down as well. And
Speaker 3: those are factors playing into this election.
Speaker 2: Now, the national polls who would you vote for polls
Speaker 2: the average of all these candidates, of these two candidates,
Speaker 2: it's now a difference of a little less than two
Speaker 2: percentage points. Harris forty eight point two, Trump forty six
Speaker 2: point four. That means that there's still about five percent
Speaker 2: of the people who either have voted for a third
Speaker 2: party candidate or have not made up their mind. How
Speaker 2: important is it for Trump to keep it this close?
Speaker 2: I mean, he's losing in the popular vote, but the
Speaker 2: theory is that he doesn't necessarily have to win the
Speaker 2: popular vote in order to win the electoral college. Right.
Speaker 3: Based on Trump's game plans from the last two cycles,
Speaker 3: when he lost by two and a half points nationally,
Speaker 3: he was able to win those swing states by forty
Speaker 3: five thousand votes and win the presidency. When he lost
Speaker 3: by four and a half points nationally, then Biden was
Speaker 3: able to win those swing states by forty five fifty
Speaker 3: thousand votes go on to the presidency. And so, as
Speaker 3: you mentioned, some of the polls have it right at
Speaker 3: three three and a half. We have it a little
Speaker 3: bit under two. But there's a little bit of a
Speaker 3: difference between this election cycle and others, and that Harris
Speaker 3: is really not campaigning in like forty states. She's not
Speaker 3: really going to California, she's not really going to New York.
Speaker 3: She's not camp because there isn't that normal election cycle
Speaker 3: where there's a nominating phase, there's the primaries. None of
Speaker 3: that happened, and so the voters don't know her as
Speaker 3: well as they would have known a previous candidate from
Speaker 3: any election cycle because that campaigning didn't occur. And so
Speaker 3: her numbers are down in New York by like five points,
Speaker 3: not ten points. Five points, so instead of being up
Speaker 3: by twenty three, she's up by eighteen nineteen. California is
Speaker 3: the same.
Speaker 2: Thing that doesn't help Trump in the sense that a
Speaker 2: loss is a loss. You lose New York by ten votes,
Speaker 2: you lose the electoral college votes. He's probably written those
Speaker 2: off anyway.
Speaker 3: He's yeah, But I'm talking about the national vote, and
Speaker 3: that at three and a half percent, three percent, some
Speaker 3: of that is inflated in that in previous elections, like Clinton,
Speaker 3: she ran up her numbers in New York and California
Speaker 3: and she was able to win by you know, millions
Speaker 3: of votes. I don't see Harris doing it that way,
Speaker 3: and so I do see her having a pathway even
Speaker 3: at two and a half to three percent, But I
Speaker 3: think it would be more difficult for her if Trump
Speaker 3: is able to take the lead nationally, for her to
Speaker 3: be able to win the electoral college.
Speaker 2: So you think it's a tougher task for Harris to
Speaker 2: lose the popular vote and somehow get lucky and win
Speaker 2: with the electric call. Its an easier task for Trump
Speaker 2: because of the big votes in some big states like Illinois,
Speaker 2: New York, Massachusetts, and the biggest sop them all California,
Speaker 2: and you can throw in Oregon, in Washington and a
Speaker 2: few other states that are that are going to be
Speaker 2: big Democratic victories no matter what. Sure, yeah, Maryland would
Speaker 2: be category where you know, yeah, hey, if you'll stick
Speaker 2: with me for one more segment, I'd love to just
Speaker 2: pick your brain a little bit here. I know we're
Speaker 2: not calling the winner here. And I'd also like to
Speaker 2: invite callers if they'd like to ask a question, a
Speaker 2: legitimate question. As I keep telling my listeners, listeners think
Speaker 2: that polsters are not on the level. Polsters are the
Speaker 2: most on the level people in America because they are
Speaker 2: on the line. You can tell your friends you think
Speaker 2: that Trump's gonna win, or you think Harris is gonna win.
Speaker 2: No one's gonna know you were right or wrong except
Speaker 2: your friends. If if either Spencer or day Palliologus or
Speaker 2: John Zogby hit this precisely, that that makes their reputation.
Speaker 2: They want to be precise, They want to be exact.
Speaker 2: I mean, at least that's that's my fervent belief, and
Speaker 2: I think Spencer will back me up on it. We'll
Speaker 2: find out on the other side of the break if
Speaker 2: you like to join the conversation. The state of the race,
Speaker 2: how do you view it? Six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten, thirty six one seven, nine, three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: Let's have some fun.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Light Side Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is Spencer Kimball, Emerson College pollster, one of
Speaker 2: the big significant polling organizations in the country. Let me
Speaker 2: run through a couple of states here with you, just
Speaker 2: for the fun of it, and I guess I'm looking
Speaker 2: at five thirty eight, which again is a composite judgment.
Speaker 2: So they're saying right now, Nevada very close, one point
Speaker 2: one percent for the Democrats, Pennsylvania point three percent, point
Speaker 2: three of one percent, and it was a third of
Speaker 2: one percent for Trump. Michigan Democrats by point oh four percent,
Speaker 2: Wisconsin Democrat by by half of one percent, North Carolina
Speaker 2: Trump by one point one, Georgia Trump by one point six,
Speaker 2: Arizona Trump by one point nine. Those all sound pretty
Speaker 2: right to you as of this moment in time.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, yeah, I mean in the aggregate, those are
Speaker 3: the numbers that we're saying.
Speaker 2: Okay, is there is there a state out there? Give me,
Speaker 2: give me two or three states that you think could
Speaker 2: surprise everyone knows. Massachusetts will be won by Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: We can call that right now California and New York
Speaker 2: trumpel Trump will win Florida, assumed trumpel win Texas. There's
Speaker 2: any state out there that you're looking at and saying, hmm,
Speaker 2: something's going on here this state. I'm looking at it,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking that it might actually be a surprise
Speaker 2: on election nights.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously, we have the seven swing states, as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: you have your Florida and Texas. That is kind of
Speaker 3: off the board. We see those as you know, a
Speaker 3: plus five or greater for the Republicans. You got the
Speaker 3: three additional states of Minnesota, Virginia, in New Hampshire, but
Speaker 3: those states have generally been you know, five points plus
Speaker 3: for the Democrats. Though Trump made New Hampshire really close
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, it bounced back towards the Dems in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, and we haven't seen that that bounced back
Speaker 3: yet for Trump in twenty four But then you got
Speaker 3: like maybe a state like New Mexico we were looking at,
Speaker 3: but that one still seems to be pretty strong being
Speaker 3: a border state. You know, with Arizona. We saw how
Speaker 3: Arizona is a little bit different on their issues, but
Speaker 3: not in New Mexico. That one seems pretty solid for
Speaker 3: the Dems. And so you know, you've got the first,
Speaker 3: the third, the second district of Nebraska. You got the
Speaker 3: second district up in Maine. But those two also seem
Speaker 3: at least the second district in Maine seem more locked in.
Speaker 3: If you watch the debates, it seems that that district
Speaker 3: is strong for the Republicans. We'll see if the Dems
Speaker 3: are able to hold that first, the second district of Nebraska.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, I don't have, you know, like a magic
Speaker 3: state that I say, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2: If you said, hey, here's one to watch, it's a
Speaker 2: long shot. But it's again. I guess the thing that
Speaker 2: I'm looking at here is I'm looking at Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking to myself, if Pennsylvania is the state that
Speaker 2: decides the election, and if Kamala Harris in retrospe do
Speaker 2: you think she is thinking that maybe the governor of
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania today might have been a better pick than the
Speaker 2: governor of Minnesota, both in terms of how they each
Speaker 2: would have played and which state is probably would have
Speaker 2: gone democratic anyway, if you know what I'm saying, I.
Speaker 3: Do, Dan, and I think you raised two interesting points here.
Speaker 3: One is the logistics of a nineteen point electoral vote
Speaker 3: state in Pennsylvania, that Governor Shapiro is very popular and
Speaker 3: he wins that race. Now he runs against a weaker
Speaker 3: Republican candidate and wins by fifteen points, but he still
Speaker 3: wins by fifteen points. He's still very popular in the state,
Speaker 3: and to your point, he may have been a pretty
Speaker 3: strong asset on the ticket. But then I think the
Speaker 3: other part is not just the logistics of the state
Speaker 3: and the nineteen electoral votes, but that vice presidential debate
Speaker 3: seemed to be a momentum stopper and shifter in this race.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't a major change, but Harris had performed
Speaker 3: well in that first presidential debate or in the only
Speaker 3: presidential debate, and even though the polls were still floating
Speaker 3: a little bit towards Trump, what we've seen in the
Speaker 3: last two to three weeks since the vice presidential debate
Speaker 3: was Trump picking up a little bit more ground than that,
Speaker 3: suggesting that perhaps Shapiro's would have been a different type
Speaker 3: of debater against Vance, and maybe would have presented it
Speaker 3: a little bit differently than the way Walls came out
Speaker 3: a little bit more folksy. Remember you know, we're talking
Speaker 3: about an attorney general versus a governor. Well, Shapiro's a
Speaker 3: governor now too, but at the time, so it's interesting
Speaker 3: to think about those scenarios. But of course, you know,
Speaker 3: at the start walls a lot of positive media, there
Speaker 3: was a lot of energy there, and so it's hard
Speaker 3: to say how that would have come out if Shapiro's
Speaker 3: the nominee, does the progressive wing of the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: crater at that moment and say we're out and that
Speaker 3: would have been a problem for Harris as well. So
Speaker 3: hard to tell how that would have played. But obviously
Speaker 3: we'll find out in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: I would think, So how about this. We're ten thirty.
Speaker 2: I got to take a newscast. I got some callers.
Speaker 2: You want to talk to the callers? Sure, of course, Okay,
Speaker 2: I know you'd be I never would take an assumption,
Speaker 2: make an assumption. So El and Dave, I got you
Speaker 2: coming up, and if you want to jump on board
Speaker 2: and talk with Spencer Kimball sixty six seven, nine thirty.
Speaker 2: The State of the Race the twenty twenty four presidential race.
Speaker 2: Two weeks from right now, two weeks from right now,
Speaker 2: conceivably I'm not saying we will, but it's conceivable that
Speaker 2: if two weeks from right now, Pennsylvania has gone a
Speaker 2: little more strongly than maybe and is called for Harris
Speaker 2: or Trump, that could be the key that unlocks the
Speaker 2: electoral College. So it's not inconceivable that the race could
Speaker 2: be over. I don't think it will be at this
Speaker 2: point in the evening because I think that there will
Speaker 2: be too long to go and it may end up
Speaker 2: with Nevada and Arizona being the case the states that decide.
Speaker 2: But either way, we are now within two weeks. Uh
Speaker 2: within we are within two weeks less, two and a
Speaker 2: half hours of the polls in Massachusetts, up a down
Speaker 2: the East Coast, clothing that's all where this it's two
Speaker 2: weeks bo Just think of it like that, two weeks
Speaker 2: is not a long time. Back on Night Side right
Speaker 2: after this with Spencer Kimball, Polar Extraordinary from Emerson College.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News.
Speaker 2: My guest is Spencer Kimball. Spencer, I'm looking at some
Speaker 2: recent polls here. Your most recent poll was October fourteenth
Speaker 2: to the eighteenth. You had it Harris by one. So
Speaker 2: have you been are you back in the field now
Speaker 2: or when are you back in the field nationally? That
Speaker 2: was a USA Today poll.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So our national polls we go in right now
Speaker 3: each week, and so we went back in the field tonight.
Speaker 3: We'll have results back on Friday, and we'll track the
Speaker 3: race this week and next week going into the election.
Speaker 2: You got some polls coming up tomorrow on state races.
Speaker 3: We do, we do. We've been taking a look, as
Speaker 3: we previously mentioned, Florida and Texas. Those are two races
Speaker 3: that folks have been talking about. So we took a
Speaker 3: look down in Florida. Last time we were there. Rick Scott,
Speaker 3: the Senator, had a small lead. It looks like he's
Speaker 3: extended that lead now to about four or five points.
Speaker 3: Trump likewise had a four or five point lead. Remember
Speaker 3: that's a state he wins by about three points. We
Speaker 3: have him up about seven or eight when you take
Speaker 3: a look at where Remember DeSantis wins this state by
Speaker 3: nineteen in the midterms, So Florida will be interesting to watch.
Speaker 3: So those two are coming out, and then we've got
Speaker 3: South Dakota. I don't know if we've got much There
Speaker 3: a lot of ballot initiatives out there. Trump is doing
Speaker 3: about what he did before. And then we'll get into
Speaker 3: some battleground states. Oh, we got Maryland coming. That's the
Speaker 3: Larry Hogan race versus alsl Brooks. Hogan was competitive there
Speaker 3: last time. We polled in the eight point range, but
Speaker 3: now it looks like it's jumped to double digits. Remember
Speaker 3: that's a state Massachusetts very much.
Speaker 2: It's almost a mirror mirror reflection. I don't think there's
Speaker 2: one member of the Congression of Delegation down there who's anything.
Speaker 2: They're all Democrats, if I'm not mistaken. What about Texas,
Speaker 2: that's a closer race than people would have expected.
Speaker 3: Well, Texas was a state where Trump wins by I
Speaker 3: think it was like eight or nine and twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: and then it drops down to about five and a
Speaker 3: half in twenty twenty. We have it bouncing back up
Speaker 3: for Trump. But the Senate race is very competitive with
Speaker 3: Cruise and Colin Alrid. You know, it's a race where
Speaker 3: people don't necessarily know the Democrat, but they're voting against Cruise,
Speaker 3: and so that's a difficult place for the incumbent to
Speaker 3: be in. That one's still very close and we'll be
Speaker 3: exciting to watch. But the Senate overall is most likely
Speaker 3: going to go towards the Republicans based on West Virginia.
Speaker 3: And then later this week we'll have a Montana pole
Speaker 3: with John Tester and Chiehi the Republican.
Speaker 2: You watch, you'll hot you got to watch Ohio too,
Speaker 2: as I understand it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Bernie Moreno, the Trump endorsed candidate. He came
Speaker 3: out of kind of nowhere to get that nomination based
Speaker 3: on Trump's endorsement. And now shared Brown was a very
Speaker 3: popular Democrat. You know, we've had him up. But here's
Speaker 3: how polling works. When you're the incumbent, you got to
Speaker 3: get over at fifty percent, and so when you're sticking
Speaker 3: at forty seven eight percent, and that's where Ted cruises
Speaker 3: as well, that's that's a sign of concern because that
Speaker 3: means voters are still looking around and potentially going to
Speaker 3: vote for your opponent.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get um, let's get a couple of callers
Speaker 2: in here, going to go to L in Saugas. L
Speaker 2: hope you have a good question for Spencer Kimball or
Speaker 2: an observation.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, L all right, Just like there's a thing
Speaker 4: called tax avoidance, and then this tax evasion, you have
Speaker 4: election influencers, and then you cross the line into election interference.
Speaker 4: And I believe the pollsters are guilty of election interference
Speaker 4: because the undecideds are the biggest factor. They're the ones
Speaker 4: who will move left and right. Like you just said,
Speaker 4: you don't know where they're going to go, and you
Speaker 4: guys push them to say, I want to pick the winner.
Speaker 4: I'm going to Oh, the posters say this one's win,
Speaker 4: so I want to say I picked the right one,
Speaker 4: and there's nothing to a policy. It becomes like a
Speaker 4: gambling horse race or people are an ego trip. So
Speaker 4: the only people that should have this information of the
Speaker 4: inner circle candidates so they can decide how much to
Speaker 4: how much energy to exert our money in different places.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, Okay, so you know what, I just want to
Speaker 2: make sure I understay what you're saying. Now, what I
Speaker 2: think you're saying is that the pollsters should take polls
Speaker 2: for candidates but not release the results to the public.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe in the history after the fact, because all
Speaker 4: you're doing is there's.
Speaker 2: A problem with that. You want to be right, Well,
Speaker 2: here's the problem that good, it's Spencer's going to react to.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem from my perspective. If Spencer Campbell
Speaker 2: does a poll for candidate X, whether it's anal poll
Speaker 2: or it's a poll in a state, and then he
Speaker 2: tells candidate x's campaign here's what the numbers are. How
Speaker 2: long do you think those numbers are going to stay quiet?
Speaker 4: Right? But the point of it is it shouldn't be
Speaker 4: pushed to the undecided voters because you're influencing them.
Speaker 2: Okay, Spencer, your witness, go ahead. Well, Al from sagas Al.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the call and the concern, and it's been
Speaker 3: something that's happened in polling industry really since its inception.
Speaker 3: There was congressional hearings back in the nineteen forties saying
Speaker 3: that pollsters were actually suppressing the vote by just doing polls.
Speaker 3: It turned out the data was in the other end
Speaker 3: that turnout was actually higher. Not to say that the
Speaker 3: polls increased turnout, but it's certainly the conclusion that they
Speaker 3: decreased or suppressed turnout really didn't play out in those
Speaker 3: data sets. However, when you look at these undecided voters,
Speaker 3: you know, we put it out there that still four
Speaker 3: or five percent and that the race is open. So
Speaker 3: to me, it's not really locking somebody in saying, oh,
Speaker 3: this one's gonna win. Jump on the bandwagon, because if
Speaker 3: you had that, then Hillary Clinton really would have won
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen because ninety something percent of the polls
Speaker 3: were skewed in her direction. So if you were a
Speaker 3: nondecided voter, you'd say, well, if I want to jump
Speaker 3: on the winner, Clinton's going to be the winner. Even
Speaker 3: the expectation question was like sixty percent or hire of
Speaker 3: voters dot Clinton was going to win that election. So
Speaker 3: there's the bandwagon effect and people jumping on. But it
Speaker 3: didn't happen, And so I think it and I hear
Speaker 3: your point. Polling really is an opportunity to understand your audience.
Speaker 3: It's audience analysis and persuasion. So when we hear candidates
Speaker 3: talking about certain issues or topics, it's generally pole driven.
Speaker 3: I can tell you what the most important issues are,
Speaker 3: and then you can't hear the candidates talk about them.
Speaker 3: And then we test out their different policies, you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's really popular, Like you know, the no tax on tips,
Speaker 3: that's a really you know, seventy something percent popularity across
Speaker 3: all political ideologies. You can see why both Trump and
Speaker 3: then Harris jumped on that policy because it was popular
Speaker 3: in the polling kind of let the public see and
Speaker 3: and why that policy would be, you know, something that
Speaker 3: they would advocate for. And so there's a lot of
Speaker 3: different uses of surveys and polls. Remember we're a twenty
Speaker 3: billion dollar industry. So but this one area for pre
Speaker 3: election polling is an area that we study. We look
Speaker 3: at what to do with undecided voters. In fact, I've
Speaker 3: done multiple studies that I just study these people and
Speaker 3: I say, well, what's the best way to study them,
Speaker 3: how to ask these questions and how to learn from
Speaker 3: from the from these surveys, and so that's what that's
Speaker 3: what we use them for. I can hear the concerns though,
Speaker 3: Al We're not looking to influence public opinion. We're looking
Speaker 3: to represent and be able to meror it back to
Speaker 3: folks so they know, you know, because we all think, oh,
Speaker 3: this is how I think about this, and then you
Speaker 3: see the survey back and oh, I guess I'm in
Speaker 3: the minority on that issue.
Speaker 2: I think the people that are trying to influence public
Speaker 2: opinion are the spin misters from the different candidate. They'll
Speaker 2: look at a poll and they'll say, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know we're down one percent, but or I know we're
Speaker 2: up one percent, but it's even going to be bigger
Speaker 2: than that. There's where I think the influence comes into play.
Speaker 2: A good question. I hope you appreciated the answer. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it's going to give insu but it's an honest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was very good. The undecided, though, please try
Speaker 4: to explain them. How can you not decide by now?
Speaker 4: I know people are voting now too. They just said
Speaker 4: on the news, fourteen percent of matter choose that's already voted.
Speaker 4: I guess so they just said.
Speaker 2: Well, but maybe I've decided. Turned out to be the
Speaker 2: people who choose not to vote.
Speaker 4: Ah, very good, Dan.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, if you if you're really undecided, and there
Speaker 2: could be some people who decide, I want to go
Speaker 2: vote in the Senate race because whatever reason, but I
Speaker 2: can't make up my mind, and you know, they blank.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they've done a study on how
Speaker 2: many people blanked Hillary and Trump in twenty sixteen, how
Speaker 2: many blanked Trump and Biden in twenty twenty. Is there
Speaker 2: a study done on that.
Speaker 3: They usually blank down the ballot, so you're voting for
Speaker 3: person and then you blank. Now, the issue in twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen were the third party candidates, and it's still an
Speaker 3: issue here in twenty twenty. We're not seeing it here
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts because we're not a competitive state. But if
Speaker 3: you're down in Georgia, there's a Jill Stein billboard up
Speaker 3: in town, and we know Jill Stein from Massachusetts. She's
Speaker 3: down there campaigning and the Democrats are very concerned that
Speaker 3: she's going to pull votes from Harris. Now there's also
Speaker 3: a libertarian, Chase Oliver. He's from Georgia and he's down there,
Speaker 3: and the Republicans aren't concerned that he's going to pull
Speaker 3: votes from So there's a lot of moving parts in
Speaker 3: these elections. It's not as easy as just saying, you know,
Speaker 3: they'll not vote, or they'll they'll vote on one issue
Speaker 3: or another. But it is interesting to see how people
Speaker 3: decide where to place those votes.
Speaker 2: One thing that you said, one one thing, Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: hold on, just one thing. I want to I just
Speaker 2: want to add elephants, Okay, because I'll lose the thought.
Speaker 2: One thing that you said, Spencer, which was interesting. I
Speaker 2: did not realize that Trump's vote in Texas dropped off
Speaker 2: on a percentage basis from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: That's the first time I've heard that. I'm sure it's true.
Speaker 2: Did anyone someone must have done a study and said, okay,
Speaker 2: to prove that the results of the election were with
Speaker 2: what people most people accepted that Biden won the race.
Speaker 2: Did anyone you know, point out in a public forum that, hey,
Speaker 2: Trump's percentage of victory even in states that he won,
Speaker 2: was less in twenty twenty than twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: That I don't know. But in twenty twenty, you got
Speaker 3: to remember, there were more votes prior to election day
Speaker 3: because of early voting, than all of the votes of
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. So we had this huge turnout. And as
Speaker 3: we come into twenty twenty four, I'm going to bet
Speaker 3: on a lower turnout than in twenty twenty. So I
Speaker 3: don't think we're going to have one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: million votes one hundred and fifty five million votes. So
Speaker 3: who are the people who aren't going to come out?
Speaker 3: And as you mentioned, those might be the undecided voters
Speaker 3: five percent, but it could be a more substantial number.
Speaker 3: And that's where the pollsters we run into some problems
Speaker 3: when we're trying to project turnout numbers and those numbers
Speaker 3: don't hit the mark sometimes.
Speaker 2: Okay, ell, if you can make it quick or I
Speaker 2: can hold you over past.
Speaker 4: It real quick. When you've got to do trying to
Speaker 4: figure out New Hampshire, you better pull Massachusetts because the
Speaker 4: same day registration in Hampshire and they bust people up there.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't believe that, but you could say that.
Speaker 2: I don't think they. I really don't. I've never seen
Speaker 2: any evidence of that. Do they maybe bust people up
Speaker 2: to staff polling places, but I think I've never seen
Speaker 2: any You heard some stuff, but you heard this is
Speaker 2: what the problem is. I mean, the problem is you
Speaker 2: heard some stuff and you say it on my show.
Speaker 2: I've never seen any proof of that whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Kind of like same day registration either, Well, that's fine,
Speaker 4: just like I don't think college students should vote.
Speaker 2: I think college students should. We have to vote in
Speaker 2: the communities where they live, not in schools that they
Speaker 2: happen because they can influence, particularly in the state. But
Speaker 2: that's reasonable. But the idea of their buses of people
Speaker 2: coming up across the borders from Massachusetts, Massachusetts residents who
Speaker 2: have done their duty to voted. The implication of what
Speaker 2: you're saying is people vote at eight o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 2: get on buses and go up and vote in New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: That's just there's no proof of that. Gotta run, but
Speaker 2: I gotta run. Thank you all. I have a great one.
Speaker 2: Hissbray coming right back with Spencer Kimball.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna keep Spencer with me until eleven, and
Speaker 2: those of you who are not gonna get on this hour,
Speaker 2: you stay right there and I get you right on
Speaker 2: the other side of the break. Let me go to
Speaker 2: Dave and Danvers. Dave, you've been winning the longest Go
Speaker 2: right ahead.
Speaker 4: Uh, it's talking to me Dan.
Speaker 2: Are you Dave from Danvers?
Speaker 4: Day from Davers?
Speaker 2: Is that you Dave from Danvers? We're wasting time.
Speaker 5: Dave, Oh, on the phone, hanging on?
Speaker 2: Okay, why don't you hang on a little longer? Okay,
Speaker 2: put him on hold? Do you want to waste my time?
Speaker 2: We're gonna move on to Donna in Berkeley. Donna next
Speaker 2: on Nightsider, right ahead.
Speaker 5: I can I'm so sorry, and it's the beginning of
Speaker 5: the program because I'm on my way.
Speaker 2: To work, but I have problem this to say hi
Speaker 2: to Spencer Kimball. He's the Emerson College poster.
Speaker 5: Hi Spencer Spence. Then my question is when you're doing
Speaker 5: these pollings and I hear these pollings every day, my
Speaker 5: question is they didn't ask me. And so then Dan
Speaker 5: had a good point was maybe these undecided may not
Speaker 5: even vote. So how does one do these pollings when
Speaker 5: I haven't been asked or my husband hasn't been asked?
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 2: A great question.
Speaker 3: So we've got, you know, roughly two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: four million adults in the country that we get to
Speaker 3: reach out to, and you're not getting many surveys here
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts because we don't have money competitive races, though.
Speaker 3: We are doing a Massachusetts poll this week, and what
Speaker 3: we do is we send out about thirty thousand text
Speaker 3: messages to a random list of people from the state,
Speaker 3: and if you get a text message from Emerson College Polling,
Speaker 3: we ask you to take the survey. We'll also send
Speaker 3: out some emails and we'll call you on your landline
Speaker 3: if you have a landline. And so we use random
Speaker 3: sampling sampling of people and from all of those text
Speaker 3: messages and phone calls, we'll get about a thousand people
Speaker 3: to complete the survey and then we'll do the study. Now,
Speaker 3: your question about those undecided voters, and we had al
Speaker 3: from the previous segment ask about them. You know, there's
Speaker 3: different ways of handling. We've had researchers in the past
Speaker 3: who suggest you just take them out of the survey
Speaker 3: and you reweight the results based on no undecided voters.
Speaker 3: Other folks think that you should push those undecided voters
Speaker 3: and you ask them a follow up question saying if
Speaker 3: you had to make a decision, which way would you lean.
Speaker 3: And so those are two of the more popular ways
Speaker 3: of dealing with the undecided voters, and we actually do
Speaker 3: both because we're here to study and learn what is
Speaker 3: the best methods available out there, and then after the
Speaker 3: elections we go back and we say, oh, this worked
Speaker 3: better than that, and then we can add to the
Speaker 3: knowledge in the field of survey research.
Speaker 5: Very good. So my second question, if you don't mind
Speaker 5: with all your polling and then you go back to
Speaker 5: re examine it after the election, how correct were you
Speaker 5: in your polling?
Speaker 3: We were pretty good. I mean our national poll in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty is probably the best in the country. We
Speaker 3: were at I think four point two, and I think
Speaker 3: Biden wins by four point four. We got tripped up
Speaker 3: in a few of the states where we weren't perfect,
Speaker 3: and so those are areas that we look to improve upon.
Speaker 3: Same thing. In the midterm elections, we were pretty solid.
Speaker 3: Remember we're doing twenty four to twenty five different states,
Speaker 3: upwards of fifty three fifty five races, and what we're
Speaker 3: looking to do is have the survey just fall within
Speaker 3: that margin of error. I know that the public wants
Speaker 3: you to have the winner, and trust me, I would
Speaker 3: love predictive accuracy, but that's not how surveys work. There
Speaker 3: are a range of scores, and so if I tell
Speaker 3: you that the race is going to be two points
Speaker 3: and the other side wins by two the survey actually
Speaker 3: does its job. It's a range. It's not going to
Speaker 3: be as precise as we would like it to be.
Speaker 3: But if I tell you that somebody is gonna win
Speaker 3: by ten points and they lose, then that survey did
Speaker 3: not do the job because it fell with outside that range.
Speaker 3: And so as we take a look at some of
Speaker 3: these races like Florida and Texas, those are falling now
Speaker 3: outside the margin of error, suggesting that those are not
Speaker 3: going to be all that competitive, though these swing states
Speaker 3: still seem that they could go in either direction.
Speaker 2: All we got we got to stop it. The good questions, Donnie,
Speaker 2: get them all in. Thank thank you much, thank you,
Speaker 2: all right, right back at you. Spencer is always really
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. Uh. I'm going to just go to open
Speaker 2: lines on this issue on the other side of the eleven.
Speaker 2: But thanks my friend, and we'd love to have you
Speaker 2: back at least one more time as we get a
Speaker 2: little closer to that two week mark of November fifth,
Speaker 2: which is now just two weeks away. Thank you so much, Spencer.
Speaker 3: As always, Thanks Dan, I have a great night, all.
Speaker 2: Right, hang in there. He's the best, one of the best, folks.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you. We only bring you the best here
Speaker 2: on night side, and we will continue with your calls. Uh.
Speaker 2: We got a couple of open lines six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty or six one seven, nine three one
Speaker 2: ten thirty. Dial it up. Are you concerned that your person,
Speaker 2: your man or woman in this race is dropping or
Speaker 2: not going to make it, or are you dead solid,
Speaker 2: perfect that you got a winner. We'll discuss right after
Speaker 2: the eleven o'clock News