A Pollster Helps Us Manage Our Election Anxiety

Matter of Opinion

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Ross Douthat, News, New York Times, Journalism

4.2 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been neck and neck in the polls for weeks. But past elections have proved the polls wrong. Can we trust them this time? This week, the hosts are joined by Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster and Times Opinion contributor, to talk through what polls can — and can’t — tell us about how voting day will go. Plus, a taste for All Hallow’s Eve.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And that's how you ended up with the focus group of conflicted conservative New York Times columnists who...
0:08.0	The last truly undecided voters in America? The call is coming from inside the house?
0:13.4	That's right. It's just going to be me and Brett Stevens in your next focus group doing extensive
0:18.6	therapy together. Oh, I'd pay to watch that. I'd so pay to watch that. I'd so pay to watch that.
0:25.0	From New York Times opinion, I'm Ross Dauthett.
0:27.0	I'm Michelle Cottle.
0:28.0	I'm Carlos Lozada.
0:30.0	And this is matter of opinion.
0:33.0	We are less than a month away
0:40.0	we are less than a month away from the 2024 election.
0:44.6	And through all the chaos, all the drama, all the excitement,
0:48.3	the polls have been there to scare us, comfort us,
0:51.4	infuriate us, or simply leave us totally baffled about what's actually going on.
0:57.4	Right now, the New York Times polling average, the most trustworthy of all polling averages shows...
1:04.0	The gold standard.
1:05.0	Why the laughter, we set the bar high.
1:07.0	It shows Kamala Harris and Donald Trump essentially tied across seven key battleground states, and that's remained basically unchanged for weeks.
1:17.0	So it's a toss-up, or maybe it's not, because a lot of people on both sides don't trust the polls even the polling
1:24.6	averages even the New York Times polling average because I know because they've
1:29.7	been wrong before maybe especially in elections where Trump is on the ballot.
1:35.6	So we wanted some help, interpreting the numbers and whatever story they're telling us about
1:41.2	voters.
	...

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