Transcript: Trumpworld Rattled as Polls Show Undecideds Move to Harris
Butterfield: Absolutely. We talk a lot about how there’s a difference between talking about Trump the person and Trump the policy shaper, the person who failed us in his first term. People’s opinions about Donald J. Trump the person and how he feels and his racist behavior, that’s probably more baked; people’s understanding and their memory about what he actually did when he’s in office, that’s where there’s work to do. The way that we think about that work [is] it’s not just retrospective reminding people of what it was like under his first term but really demonstrating that when you look at Harris versus Trump and their vision for the future. It’s night-and-day difference between what Harris is promising and what she’s laying out as far as her economic vision specifically versus Trump who all he could promise us was a concept of a plan. So really making sure that we’re not only looking backward, but reminding voters to look forward as well. That is certainly working really well, and we saw that play out in the Harris closing arguments for sure.
Sargent: A quick recap of the latest polls: The highly regarded Des Moines Register poll finds Harris up three in Iowa, which Trump won by eight points in 2020. It seems unlikely Harris will win that state, but the poll could very well be registering real movement and it shows independent women breaking toward her pretty hard by 57 to 29 and female seniors by even larger margins. Meanwhile, the New York Times/Siena polls find Harris up three in Nevada, up two in North Carolina and Wisconsin, up one in Georgia, tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and Trump up four in Arizona. Mixed bag, probably better for Harris overall. But here’s a key number: Among those who only recently decided on their vote, she’s ahead by 55 to 44. All of that suggests some surprising breaks toward Harris. Are you seeing evidence out there of shifts like this?
Butterfield: Last night was a fun night on the internet, between Harris appearing on SNL and getting that Iowa poll back. I was talking to our analytics director who obviously has a really good finger on the pulse of what’s going on—her name is Chelsea Bukowski—and her response to me was exactly on point, which is that good polls get their accuracy wings when everyone knocks doors during GOTV. So a good poll is always going to feel good, and a bad poll is going to feel bad, but there’s so much work that we need to be doing over the next several days, up through Tuesday night, to make sure that we’re turning out every single possible vote that we can.
