MSNBC analyst: We could know who is the next president on Tuesday night
Nov 4, 2024, 2:43 PM | Updated: 2:58 pm
MSNBC political analyst Jason Johnson said we might know who the next president is on Tuesday night. He explained that if former President Donald Trump gets less than 50% of the white female vote and Vice President Kamala Harris gets double-digit Republican voters, “we might have an answer on Tuesday night.”
That being said, the scenario is unlikely based on the latest polling.
“The important thing is, you have massive, massive, massive turnout of Republicans in early voting, right? So there’s been a big story about that, early Republican voting in Nevada, early Republican voting in Virginia, early Republican voting in Pennsylvania,” Johnson observed. “So a lot of Republicans have been like, ‘Yeah, that’s right, we’re going to win.’
“That’s not political science,” he added. “That’s not campaign science. Here’s why: because of early voting, you can’t say anything about early voting. And smart analysts will admit that you can’t read anything from early voting because unless you can determine whether or not that early vote is an election day voter, it doesn’t tell you anything.”
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Johnson is a political scientist from Morgan State University in Baltimore. He said you can’t tell anything from the number of early voters. Johnson explained that all you know is that those people voted early.
But there was real polling news in the final days before the election. In Iowa, a poll by highly respected pollster Ann Selzer showed a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans. Both parties had all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory but are now seeing a Harris lead.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before the vote that appears deadlocked in key battleground states.
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“This poll is interesting,” Johnson said.
He explained that he thinks the poll is accurate, but believes it’s an outlier.
“But it highlights some trends we’re seeing with Harris across the country, like her improvements among seniors and college-educated voters,” Johnson explained. “The biggest takeaway is that Harris got 11% of Republican votes in that poll. If she gets 8% or more of the Republican vote, that could change things on Tuesday night.”
He said that women over 65 remember life before Roe v. Wade.
“A right that has been on the books since they were teenagers has been taken away in the last two years,” Johnson added. “That is a massive change and a driving force in their voting behavior. Many pollsters, who are often men, might be underestimating this impact.”
Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.
