Gauging Enthusiasm Without Polls

Polling is broken in 2024, but there are other indicators to consider.

Oh hey, didn't realize anybody was still here. Maybe nobody is! Nevertheless, this is supposed to be an election blog and we have an election coming in 20 days. Twenty days, five hours, eight minutes, and twenty seconds until the first polls close in Kentucky and Indiana, as of the time of writing. Since the last time I wrote something here, the Democratic Party's prepsumptive nominee withdrew from the election and handed off to his running-mate, and a lackluster following on both sides turned into a massive enthusiasm gap between the fired-up Democrats and the glum, resigned Republicans.

In any case, I wanted to talk about enthusiasm, and that's as good of a segue as I was going to get, given the constraints imposed by writing this between projects at work. Most established news organizations are reqorting that the Harris campaign is losing momentum, and that the Vice President's lead is narrowing. The Bulwark and Crooked Media are reporting that "the race is tied," based on the same inputs on which the aforementioned news media outlets base their reporting and analysis. That input is polls, which were unreliable from the start of this election season, going back years.

In 2016, Secretary Clinton was predicted, based on polling data, to run away with the Presidential election. But she wound up losing, because private citizen Trump was able to win three states by the barest of margins. In 2020, Joe Biden managed to win those states back by slim margins, and to take Georgia and Arizona as well, by even smaller margins. But again, polling showed a big Biden advantage in all the states in question. After that, something strange happened. Pollsters popped the hood and tweaked the machinery of their polls. For whatever reason, they altered their methods, resulting in the oversampling of Republican voters.

In the 2022 midterm elections, almost everybody with a microphone or a keyboard predicted a "red wave," -- a widespread mandate for Republicans in Congress, state houses, and state legislatures. I predicted, based on the Dobbs decision earlier that year, that the predictions were just plain wrong. I expected the Democrats to expand their majorities in the House and Senate. I was wrong, but only just so. The Republicans did take the House, but only by a handful of seats, leaving them to thrash between the internal divisions in their party to render them completely impotent in their term, except when they were able to cooperate with the Democrats.

I expected Tim Ryan to beat JD Vance, Val Demings to beat Marco Rubio, and for Mandela Barnes to beat Ron Johnson-- and none of them did. John Fetterman did defeat Mehmet Oz to flip Pat Toomey's seat in Pennsylvania, and every incumbent Senate Democrat successfully defended their seat. The Democratic caucus increased its majority by one, to 51 seats.

Polling missed all of this. Professional analysts predicted the GOP to control the House by 30 seats or more, but they only controlled it by 5 or 6, relegating Kevin McCarthy to cat-herder status in his brief time with the gavel. The 118th Congress accomplished almost nothing in their time. They passed aid to Ukraine, increased the debt ceiling, and avoided shutdown after several close calls. Two weeks after the 2022 election, ahead of over 90 criminal indictments and civil judgements against him, Donald Trump wheezed out his intention to run for President again, in a low-energy speech that captured the enthusiasm of approximately nobody. A few months later, Joe Biden clarified that it was his intention to seek re-election, saying, "let's finish the job."

Over the next 18 months or so, donations came trickling in, to both men's campaigns. In June of this year, Joe Biden made a very poor account of himself on the debate stage, looking like a doddering old patient of an Alzheimer’s ward, setting into motion a series of events that would culminate in his withdrawal from the campaign less than a month later. By that time, Joe Biden had managed to raise about 87 million dollars in donations from individuals, which for a Presidential candidate is abysmally low. But even though his withdrawal and donation numbers were indicative of a disinterested, disengaged, fatigued electorate, Donald Trump's were far worse.

Trump was indicted for election interference in New York City on March 30th, 2023. Senator Lindsey Graham predicted there would be riots in the streets, if anyone ever forced Trump to face any consequences for his criminality. With plenty of warning, only 500 supporters materialized to protest the indictment in Manhattan. Even fewer showed up in Miami for his espionage indictment. From the time he announced his 2024 candidacy until Biden dropped, Trump received two and a half million dollars from individual donors, or roughly $125,000 for each month of his campaign. In the months since then, Trump's numbers have made only moderate improvements, with about sixteen million donated by the end of September. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has received about $800 million from individuals since taking over the ticket.

Trump's rallies, previously known to be big political hoedowns that pushed venue capacities, have been in 2023 and 2024 instead characterized by embarrassingly low attendance, waves of people leaving early, and in one case, one of his supporters firing shots at him.

Trump's donations are in the toilet, and what few people show up to his rallies are leaving early. (Effectively) Nobody showed up to protest his indictments or trials. But polls show him at an effective tie for the White House, and nobody wants to acknowledge the colossal disconnect.

So I have been looking at data from the Federal Election Commission, and built this sheet which remains a work in progress, but shows with hard data the funding aspect of the enthusiasm gap between Trump and Harris. Polling is broken, and given limitations in technology and the desire and actions of large portions of the voting population to be left alone, I don't see the polling problems getting fixed anytime soon. So for my part, I am seeking other indicators of how this and other races are going. To aid with that, I have written a new addition to the House and Senate analysis pages that shows funding from individuals to various candidates, as a means to gauge voter enthusiasm on the ground.

I honestly don't know if this is a realistic way to gauge enthusiasm, but it's also something I have not seen anyone else do. And if I am on to something here, I will be able to point at this blog post along with my cash app and paypal to prove I was first. But I will be following this post up with lists of Congressional races that are worth watching on election night, and that will likely be part of the flip back to blue that I expect to see in the House of Representatives.