While the new shock results Iowa poll from pollster Ann
Selzer has been blowing up everybody's news feeds, and for
good reason.
It is just one poll.
And we should put it in the context of what's
going on more broadly in the polling as we're getting
into the final polling before Election Day, including the big
new poll from NBC News today.
The top line of that one is that it's a
tie, 49 for Harris, 49 for Trump.
Even as the NBC poll shows a nation a national
deadlock, there's a couple of internal numbers that the pro
Harris side in particular is latching onto.
For one, Black voters in the NBC poll support Harris
by a margin of 87% to 9%.
In context, that's a three-point larger margin with Black voters
than Biden won in 2020.
Even though so much recent conversation about this campaign has
centered on Harris supposedly having a slipping standing with Black
voters in the NBC poll, she's doing better with Black
voters than Biden did.
The NBC poll also shows a huge gender gap, which
we're seeing in every poll, 34 points altogether.
Women supporting Harris by 16, men supporting Trump by 18.
Perhaps that is not surprising on issues.
Kamala Harris having a 20 point lead over Trump on
the issue of abortion in the NBC poll.
But there's a lot more here.
And, and this is just part of the polling landscape.
As we do get our final look before actual vote
starts to come in from actual voters on Tuesday.
Let's bring in our friend Steve Kornacki, who was made
for this and who is standing by at the big
board with so much energy and stamina.
Despair.
Steve, we just look, we're looking at you at the
top of the mountain right now, my friend.
Well, here we go, Rachel.
And look, when it comes to the polling right now,
I think the safest thing to say is there are
some extremely mixed signals that are coming in.
You just talked about Iowa, obviously a state Donald Trump
won by nearly 10 points the last two elections.
Now at least in that Des Moines Register poll, having
Harris slightly ahead, that it comes as this national poll
shows Donald Trump better position nationally then he finished in
2020 or 2016.
And frankly then he polled in either one of those
elections to our poll has it tied.
Other national polls have it very much in this range
of a tide race, maybe Harris by one or two,
maybe Trump by one or two.
That's a little different and it leaves open lots of
questions about what's going on in the battleground States and
perhaps outside of the battleground states.
We'll get to that in a minute.
But looking inside our NBC poll here, there's the question
of enthusiasm, which always gets to the variable of turn
out here.
These are folks from our poll who rate themselves with
the highest level of interest in this election.
It is at 77% in our poll.
You can see that is down a little bit from
2020.
We had historic high turn out in 2020, 160 million
voters.
This number 2, when you look inside the lowest levels
of high interest are coming from non white voters, Latino
voters and black voters.
Two ways to view that.
Obviously you're talking about traditionally core Democratic constituencies that could
take away from Democratic overall margins with those groups.
It could also be trouble for Donald Trump though, because
polling has shown previously him expanding support with non white
voters.
If he's starting to lose those potential voters to lack
of interest, that could be trouble for his campaign.
Then you take a look here at the issues.
It really the climate we're seeing here is what we've
seen the whole election.
Harris's best advantage by far on the issue of abortion,
20 points over Trump on that.
Trump here with the advantage on inflation and cost of
living.
The other one you don't see here, the biggest Trump
advantage is the border and immigration.
The gender gap.
I think you talked about this one, but I mean,
just to put this in context, Trump leading by 18
points with men, Harris leading by 16 with women.
If that's what you get, something like that, that's a
gender gap of 34 points.
The previous high in history was 24 points.
So this would absolutely shatter any historical record when it
comes to the gender gap.
Then there's this interesting issue of you've got an incumbent
administration that Harris is a part of.
Joe Bidens final approval rating in our poll is going
to clock in at 41%.
And obviously that low approval rating is one of the
reasons there were Democrats who were anxious to get Biden
out of this race earlier this year.
Harris, part of that administration.
How much is that weighting her down here?
And then Trump himself, the approval rating for a former
president seeking to become a future president in our final
poll here.
When we ask people retrospectively thinking back, do you now
approve or disapprove of the job, job Donald Trump that
is president, he's up to 48%, notably higher than Biden.
And this is higher than any reading we ever got
in an NBC poll when Donald Trump was president.
So after leaving office, it has ticked up a little
bit for him.
Will that be enough to put him over the top?
We talk all about the difference between early Election Day
voting, the partisan disparities we're finding.
Others are finding this too.
Democrats, you can expect when early vote gets reported out,
especially the mail in vote on Tuesday night should be
some Democratic advantages.
The Election Day vote becomes a question of how much
of A Republican advantage when the people who vote on
Election Day, they when their votes start to get tabulated.
Now we get to away from the national poll to
the battlegrounds.
This is our running average.
We've been keeping this the entire summer and fall of
the quality polls and all of the battleground states.
And a couple things jump out here.
Well, obviously they're all close.
You don't see a margin here of greater than 1.9
points.
You do see a bit of a north-south divide.
We've seen this lately in the polling.
Trump's leads here very small, but Arizona, Georgia, north-south Carolina,
basically Sunbelt state.
Harris's best performance is in here.
You know, Wisconsin 1.41.8 in Michigan.
These are the northern tier states, 3/10 of a point
in Pennsylvania.
So a bit of a north-south divide.
And if that holds, if that cements, that is ultimately
good news for Harris because Michigan plus Pennsylvania plus Wisconsin,
if there are no surprises outside of the battleground, would
for Harris equal 270 electoral votes.
If the action really is limited to the battleground, Donald
Trump has to win one of those 3 Northern tier
battleground states where our averages continue to show Harris with
slight, slight leads in those states.
But then that gets to the question.
And if there are no surprises outside of the core
7 battleground states that we have talked over and over
about, and that is what the Des Moines Register poll
really gets to.
It's the question of what is happening in Iowa itself
because obviously you talk to Ann Selzer right there.
One of the questions is this, does this spill over
to other states?
Does this reflect something if this is what's happening in
Iowa, that might be happening in other states, maybe states
we haven't been talking about, maybe some of the other
battleground states.
So a couple ways to look at this.
One, obviously, I think you were talking about this, but
the issue of abortion exceptionally potent in Iowa because that
six week ban went into effect this summer.
Millions of dollars in spending there, not in the presidential
race, but congressional races where abortion has been a driving
issue.
Is this more of a state specific effect that's limited
more to Iowa?
If this is what is happening in Iowa?
One thing to keep in mind, I think we'll go
over here.
This is going to start lighting up on Tuesday with
our results, Iowa on Tuesday.
I just want to show you the history here going
back.
Remember, this is an Obama, Trump state.
It's one of the most dramatic swings from Obama to
Trump.
So you have voters here who not long ago were
comfortable voting Democratic, blue collar white voters, huge blue collar
white popular here.
That swung very hard to Trump.
There are more Obama Trump counties in Iowa than any
other state in the country.
I raised that because what state is number 2?
That would be Iowa's political cousin right across the Mississippi
River, Wisconsin.
This has the second most Obama Trump counties in the
country.
And demographically these are extremely similar states.
Large white populations, a lot of blue collar rural white
population.
Even when you get into the Mississippi area, you can
go back and find German descent is very common among
people, very common demographic features and politically similar movement here.
We have not for the most part seen in Wisconsin
the kind of polling shift we just saw in that
new Iowa poll today.
So that's one thing to keep in mind.
If it's a if, it potentially could be a state
specific thing, but if it's not, if it's spilling over,
this is a place where you would expect to see
it on Tuesday night because of those demographic similarities.
And then as I say, there's that question of, look,
so much of the polling attention, the budgets for polling
have been directed to the seven battleground states.
Is there actually something going on in Iowa?
Was there something going on this whole time that was
undetected and could that be happening elsewhere?
The early test you want to pay attention to on
Tuesday night, 7:00 Eastern, a lot of the polls are
going to close in New Hampshire and this was a
state again, not in the battleground.
Biden won by 7.
The Trump folks think this thing is a lot closer
than most people are talking about.
They sent JD Vance there today.
And remember in 2016, Clinton won New Hampshire over Trump.
Of all the Clinton won states, none was closer than
New Hampshire.
The margin was just 3000 votes between those candidates.
So this is an early test.
I think for me on Tuesday night, I've we potentially
misunderstood the non battleground states.
If we're seeing some kind of surprise in New Hampshire,
I think that'll be obviously a huge development.
Obviously interesting too in terms of Trump's decision to spend
some last minute campaign time in Virginia, raising the question
as to whether or not they think that's on the
map as well.
Steve Kornacki, just the beginning of what is going to
be a beautiful relationship over these next many hours.
Steve, thank you.
We'll get back to you later on.