The final New York Times/Siena College before the election offered no clear front-runner in the 2024 presidential contest; the poll had six out of seven battleground states as toss-ups.
Polls at this point in the election usually show favorability to one candidate or another, but this year is different. The recent results are similar to the many others previously reported on this election cycle, which have shown tight battlegrounds since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race, with most results within the margin of error.
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In the poll, released two days out from Election Day, Former President Donald Trump obtained a sizable four-point lead in Arizona and a one-point lead in Michigan. Harris had leads of one point in Georgia and three points in Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. They were tied in Pennsylvania.
Harris saw gains among two of her core constituencies, black and Hispanic voters. Among black voters, she saw a total share of 84%-11%, from 80%-14% last round. Among Hispanic voters, she led 56%-35%, compared to 55%-41% from the last round.
Trump saw gains among non-college-educated white voters.
One result from the poll showed a disconnect from others this season — the state that consistently has given the worst results for Democrats, Nevada, showed Harris with one of her biggest leads yet in this recent poll.
However, pollster Nate Cohn cautioned that this poll could be repeating history by underestimating Trump.
“Across these final polls, white Democrats were 16 percent likelier to respond than white Republicans. That’s a larger disparity than our earlier polls this year, and it’s not much better than our final polls in 2020 — even with the pandemic over,” he wrote. “It raises the possibility that the polls could underestimate Mr. Trump yet again.”
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The poll spoke with 7,879 likely voters across the battleground states, including 1,025 in Arizona, 1,004 in Georgia, 998 in Michigan, 1,010 in Nevada, 1,010 in North Carolina, 1,527 in Pennsylvania, and 1,305 in Wisconsin from Oct. 24 to Nov. 2. The margin of error was 3.5% in each state poll.
With all the uncertainty from polls, voters are looking elsewhere for signs of who is likely to pull ahead. Some have turned their attention to betting odds, while others are reading into the stock market’s performance.