Why the race isn’t as close as you think: With one week to go, analyst CRAIG KESHISHIAN predicts the polls are missing a hidden voter surge

In the final week of this “tie” presidential election, I remember Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980.

Then, as now, President Jimmy Carter was polling neck and neck with his Republican rival.

A Gallup poll showed Carter had gained one percentage point nationally by the end of October. Just four days before the vote, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed the race was just as close.

Then Carter’s campaign hit rock bottom and Reagan won by nearly 10 points in the popular vote and by a staggering 489 to 49 in the Electoral College.

I was a young campaign analyst at the time, but I would later join the vaunted political strategy team in the Reagan White House and we analyzed what drove the landslide victory.

We discovered thousands of previously overlooked Americans living in rural and suburban communities—people working 40 hours a week, driving transportation, paying bills, and running small businesses.

Their voices were not regularly heard in the halls of power and they did not necessarily vote in every election.

They became known as “The Silent Majority.”

These men and women were not “country club” Republicans. Many were Democrats or culturally conservative independents who were fed up with rampant inflation, shuttered factories, failed foreign policy, and rising crime.

That ‘Silent Majority’ changed the course of history.

Now, more than four decades later and just seven days away from the 2024 vote, signs tell me that history may be repeating itself…

SUN BELT REPUBLICAN SURGE

Americans living in Nevada and Arizona have had a front-row seat to the impact of mass illegal immigration under the Biden-Harris administration.

In both states, registered Republican voters have cast more early votes than registered Democrats, reversing a historic Democratic advantage.

Of course, these early ballots do not reveal the actual number of votes, since they are not opened until Election Day. But this changing dynamic cannot be ignored.

As of Sunday, Republicans had a lead of 33,500 votes or 5.2 percent of total early votes.

Last week, Jon Ralston, editor of the Nevada Independent, described the result as “unheard of at this point in any other presidential cycle” and said there is “no good news” in the numbers for Democrats.

In Arizona, the situation is even bleaker for Democrats.

Republicans had nearly 42 percent of early ballots statewide as of Monday, compared to just over 35 percent for Democrats and 23 percent for independents.

This represents a change of almost 9 points in favor of the Republican Party compared to the 2020 elections.

The latest Trafalgar poll released on Monday provides another index with which to evaluate this race in Arizona: Trump leads Harris: 48 to 46 percent.

At this point in the 2016 race, Hillary Clinton had an average lead of 1.8 percent and ultimately lost by 1.5 points.

DEMONSTRATION OF STORM VICTIMS

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Republicans are also outperforming Democrats in early voting.

After Hurricane Helene decimated the state’s predominantly Republican western region last month, I worried that North Carolina could become a liability for Trump because his supporters might be unwilling to vote.

With people displaced, their homes destroyed, and their lives disrupted, one would assume that voting would be the last thing on their minds.

But the opposite has happened.

A record 2.8 million people in North Carolina have cast early ballots, and tens of thousands of those votes came from the storm-ravaged West.

As of last week, voters in the 25 counties in the FEMA-designated disaster area submitted 0.5 percent more ballots than in 2020.

What explains this type of strength?

While traveling across the state earlier this month, Victoria and William McKinley, from the deteriorating Beech Mountain in Avery County, told me they would ‘crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump.’

That’s what we pollsters call “voter intensity,” a possible indication of a Silent Majority moved to action.

In nearby Georgia, which was also affected by Hurricane Helene, there has been similarly strong early voter turnout.

Currently, Trump maintains a slight lead in the polls in both Georgia and North Carolina.

THE ‘KEY’ TRAPEZIOUS STATE

However, one of the most difficult states to analyze is perhaps the most critical in the elections.

If Trump loses in Pennsylvania, his path to victory in the electoral college will be significantly problematized.

Currently, early voter results in the Keystone State favor Democrats, but not as much as they did four years ago.

In 2020, Democrats had nearly 70 percent of the early vote at this point in the election, while registered Republicans accounted for just 20 percent of the count.

Today, registered Democrats have cast nearly 60 percent of the early vote and Republicans have taken 30 percent.

It’s not a huge change, but it marks a significant improvement.

And when those statistics are combined with public opinion polls and anecdotal evidence, it leads me to believe that there is growing support for Trump in the state.

Four years ago, Biden had a nearly four-point lead here and in 2016 Hillary Clinton led by five points, but Trump is currently ahead by a slim 0.5 percent.

That is significant. And don’t take my word for it.

Late last week, Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman sounded the alarm about Trump’s “special connection” with the people of his state.

The “intensity” of support for Trump in his state is “staggering,” he told the New York Times.

“It’s the kind of thing that has taken on a life of its own,” he said. ‘That doesn’t mean I admire him. It’s just real.’

Meanwhile, the state’s longtime Democratic senator, Bob Casey, who is running for re-election in a competitive race, is airing campaign ads touting his working relationship with Trump.

When two experienced lawmakers say their opponent is showing strength, it’s worth paying attention.

DEMOCRATIC ALLIES DOUBT

Finally, there are two intriguing developments in Democratic strongholds in different parts of the county.

First of all, in Michigan, another fundamental prize in this election. Trump won it in 2016 by a hair. Biden took it back in 2020.

Here, too, early voting has increased, but the state does not release information about the party affiliation of those who vote early.

However, this is reason to suspect that the enthusiasm of Democratic voters in the state is somewhat muted.

In a new poll by veteran pollster John Zogby and the Arab American Institute, Trump jumps to a 46 to 42 percent lead over Harris among likely Arab-American voters in the state.

That’s a big deal, since Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the U.S., with a statewide population estimated at more than 200,000.

This voting bloc, normally considered a safe bet for Democrats, now appears to be going soft on Harris, put off by the current administration’s continued support for Israel.

Meanwhile, polls also show that black and Hispanic voters favor Trump by historic margins. Harris knows this, hence her increased efforts in recent weeks to woo black voters with promises of handouts.

I’m also looking at Miami-Dade County in southeast Florida, a traditionally Democratic stronghold; However, registered Republicans in the county currently have a lead of nearly 30,000 early votes.

So what’s happening here and across the country? Why are once-trusted groups turning away from Democrats? Why is Harris losing traditional advantages?

I think there’s a shift happening that the polls haven’t captured yet.

Even as a polling analyst, I must admit that the forecasting power of public opinion polls in the United States is limited. Surveys can have errors due to chance, incompetence, or even deception.

There is another ‘metric’ that I have found useful, and it is based on 40 years of experience measuring the attitudes of the American people and getting a sense of what they really think.

And we’re starting to feel like 1980 again.