The Trends I’m Watching During Election Week (Part 2)

Examining more factors that may help tell the story of this election.

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(Photo: Getty Images)

Last week, I wrote about four macro-level trends I’ll be watching as election results come in. They included the gender gap (specifically among young voters), racial depolarization, the growing class divide, and the influence of geographic place. As we head into Election Day tomorrow, I want to quickly touch on a handful of final items that may hint at where the race for president is heading and, once we have a winner, the reasons why he or she succeeded.

Early Omens

• Florida. The Sunshine State will be among the earliest set of poll closings on election night. In 2020, it was the state that first signaled that a potential Biden landslide win, which had been considered a possibility, was unlikely to materialize. Despite polling showing him leading Trump there, heavily Hispanic areas of the state began moving strongly in Trump’s favor (something that was shortly after mirrored in Texas, where Biden was thought to be competitive as well). Trump ultimately won Florida that year by 3.3 points, growing his margin from 2016. If he wins the state by an even greater margin this time and grows his support among Hispanics, it could be an early sign that he is making even further inroads with them elsewhere, too—including in key swing states like Arizona and Nevada.

• Virginia. Old Dominion has arguably perfectly reflected the country’s national political environment over the last four years. Despite trending increasingly more Democratic at the presidential level since 2012, the state swung to Republicans in the 2021 gubernatorial election, as Democratic support in college-educated and majority-black areas of the state eroded a bit. This reflected the national environment, which wasn’t especially good for Democrats at the time. Then, in 2022, Virginia offered an early signal that the expected Republican wave may not reach the heights they’d hoped for, as the Democrats successfully defended a crucial toss-up House seat in VA-07. So, as the state begins tallying their votes this year, keep an eye on Democratic performance in the state’s growing suburbs and majority-black communities. If Harris is matching or surpassing Biden’s margins, it may reflect similar strength in more competitive states. But if she’s falling short in them—or if Democrats lose VA-07 this time—it could be an omen of things to come for the party.

• Early swing state calls. In 2020, none of the five states that flipped from Trump to Biden were called on election night. The earliest ones—Michigan and Wisconsin—were decided Wednesday, and it took multiple days before there were calls for the other three. Given how close this year’s election looks to be, it’s possible we won’t know the winner for several days again. Conversely, if the polls showing a dead heat are off in either direction, we may know sooner. One of the first clues indicating this is if any of the seven major swing states are called on election night. Two in particular I’ll be watching are Pennsylvania and Georgia: an early Harris win in Georgia or a Trump win in Pennsylvania could give us a very good idea of which candidate will be favored to take the whole thing.

Stories from the Exit Polls¹

• The change candidate. At a time when more than three in five Americans say the country is on the wrong track, and a majority say they feel worse off than they did four years ago, many voters are likely looking for a candidate who represents change. Polling earlier in the campaign showed that voters viewed Harris as the “change” candidate. However, she has also been dogged by comments she made more recently that there was “not a thing” she would have done differently than President Biden over the last four years. I will be watching to see if the exit polls ask voters which candidate they think is likeliest to bring change—and, even more specifically, the change they desire to see.

• The candidates’ perceived ideology. As I have outlined previously, how voters view the ideological lean of each candidate has appeared to play a role in recent elections. Both Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 were considered closer to the median voter than their opponents were. Historically, the exits have not measured this factor, but other polls, including several from the New York Times/Siena College, have been tracking it this cycle. As with the question about the change candidate, I’ll be watching to see if this is included in the exits this time as well.

• “Meh” voters. A term first coined by Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report in the 2022 midterm cycle, the “meh” voter was someone who “somewhat disapproved” of Joe Biden’s job performance but was planning to vote Democratic that year anyway. Walter pointed to polling that showed how in five midterm elections since the early 1990s, voters who “somewhat disapproved” of the incumbent president tended to break against his party in the midterms—but this was not happening for the Democrats in 2022. This ultimately proved to be prescient, as these voters narrowly backed the Democrats in that election, likely a big factor in their staving off a Republican wave. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the voters who “somewhat” disapprove of Biden break in this election—and, relatedly, those who say they believe the country is on the wrong track.

• When voters decided. This question can help us discern whether late-breaking events in the campaign affected voters’ decisions. In 2016, fully 26 percent of voters made up their mind in the final month of the race. Of those, 51 percent went for Trump compared to just 37 percent who backed Clinton, leading many (including Clinton herself) to argue that the infamous “Comey letter,” which was announced days before the election, helped tip Trump win. By contrast, in 2020, just 13 percent of voters said they made up their mind in the final month. This cycle, the polls have shown immense stability, an indication that most voters likely made their decision long ago. But the past month has also included some fluctuations: Trump closed the gap with Harris in October, but Harris has seemed to boost her standing over the final few weeks at the state level. So a big story may come through in the exit poll question asking when people decided to vote.

• The top issue. Perhaps more than any other question, this one has a strong track record of predicting the winner. According to an analysis from Gallup, since 1952, the party most trusted on the top issue has won the presidency every single time. For instance, in 2020, 41 percent of voters—a large plurality—said the COVID-19 pandemic was the biggest issue, and these voters broke for Biden over Trump by an overwhelming margin of 73–25. This cycle, polls indicate that the top issues on voters minds’ are the economy and immigration, and that voters who care about them favor Trump over Harris by nine points. But Democrats are hoping that the issues of abortion and “democracy protection,” which energized their base in the 2022 midterms, can be their saving grace.

Two Polling Questions

• Third time’s a charm? A perennial question for election observers relates to how accurate the polls were. This question has become more pressing in recent elections because of how badly they understated Trump’s support in both 2016 and 2020. (It was particularly egregious in the Midwest both times.) This cycle, pollsters seem to think they’ve fixed their problems. The team at FiveThirtyEight has pointed out that it is very normal—and even expected—for polls to be off by anywhere from three to five points. Even so, screwing up for a third consecutive cycle is sure to bring even greater scrutiny to an industry that is reeling from its last two high-profile misses.

• The Selzer poll. One pollster whose polls are often considered the “gold standard” in the industry is Ann Selzer. Despite the aforementioned problems in her field, Selzer’s polls in the erstwhile swing state of Iowa have been spot-on in every election since 2012. Four years ago, even as the polling averages showed Trump leading Biden in Iowa by just one point, Selzer’s final survey put the Republican president ahead by seven—and he ultimately won by eight. This past weekend, Selzer’s final pre-election poll shocked the political world, as it showed the state now supporting Harris by three points. Many suspect this poll result to be an outlier, which even the best pollsters will produce on occasion in a world of statistical variance. But the more important question will be whether Selzer’s poll captured a real pro-Democratic swing among white voters in the Midwest—specifically, in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Other Tidbits

• COVID-era migration patterns. Over the weekend, the New York Times released an analysis of recent migration trends in the U.S. showing that at least 3.5 million people have moved since the last presidential election, including many who went to another state. According to the analysis, the party registration of new arrivals was more Democratic than Republican in four of this cycle’s seven battleground states—Michigan (D+12), Pennsylvania (D+17), Wisconsin (D+17), and Georgia (D+12). Meanwhile, it was more Republican-leaning in three: Arizona (R+26), Nevada (R+3), and North Carolina (D+2). In states where the final margins are expected to be extremely close, these new additions could make the difference.

• Ticket-splitting. The number of voters willing to split their tickets—backing the president of one party and the Senate candidate of the other—has diminished substantially in recent years, a sign of the growing power of partisanship in American politics. Voters have done this just once in the last two presidential cycles: in 2020, voters in Maine backed Joe Biden while re-electing GOP Senator Susan Collins. This growing trend bodes ill for Democrats, whose hopes of retaining the Senate rest on the prospects of two longtime members running in states that voted for Trump by large margins in each of the last two elections. If Harris wins, they may have a chance, but they’ll still need to carry meaningful numbers of Trump voters to have a chance. Meanwhile, several swing states also have big Senate contests, and if ticket-splitting continues to decline, the outcome of those races may hinge on which presidential candidate carries their state.

• The impact of third-party candidates. Something that has received less coverage than it may deserve is how the presence of third parties on the ballot could tip the race for president. Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whose 2016 vote totals in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan were greater than Trump’s win margins in those states, is on the ballot in every presidential battleground except for Arizona. Stein may be an outlet for some of the left-wing anger at Harris and Biden over their policies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, despite his efforts to remove his name from the ballot, RFK Jr.’s name will be on it in Michigan and Wisconsin, which could be costly for Trump.

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There is plenty more we’ll be tracking and reporting on in the days and weeks ahead. For now, it’s time to cast your ballot, then perhaps step back from the bombardment of political news until Tuesday evening. There’s not much more we will learn between now and then, but there is plenty that could play with our emotions and leave us on edge. We’ll have a result before you know it—enjoy life in the meantime.

1. I will refer to the exit polls throughout this section, but in practice, I’ll mostly—if not entirely—be relying on the AP VoteCast survey, whose results are generally considered slightly more reliable than those of the traditional exit poll.