FiveThirtyEight is one of the nations foremost pollsters, often quoted by many, even
at a time when polling in general is losing appeal to all sides. These days, it appears most people either don't want to answer their phones --
normally cell phones these days -- or they choose to do polls online, which can be much less accurate. It is harder to get honest information out of
people and much more difficult to do follow up interviews. All of this, and many other factors, make polling pretty inaccurate these days.
However, that does not mean that we can't follow the trends from the same pollsters, because that is more accurate. What I mean is, if you follow
weeks or months of polls from one pollster, who always uses the same methodology regardless of its flaws, you can see the trend moving up or down,
even if the final numbers may be inaccurate.
In these following graphs, we can follow the trend of the four Pres/VP candidates, and how their favorability has moved over the last few weeks, or
months.
________
First, we have
Donald Trump, at 8.2% NEGATIVE favorability. However,
you can see that his favorability has improved since the assassination attempt on July 13. For the three months preceding it, his overall favorability
was hovering between negative 10 and 12, and has dropped 3 to 4 points since then.
________
Second is
Kamala Harris, and we can see she was widely unpopular
before her entrance as the primary on the ticket. She currently stands at 5.3% NEGATIVE overall favorability, while just a month before her candidacy
she was at a -17%.
________
The third graph is for
JD Vance, who has surpassed Donald Trump in
unfavorability, and currently stands at NEGATIVE 9.4%. He is the only candidate who keeps getting more unpopular. A month ago he was between -5 and
-6, but while his favorability seems to remain steady, his unfavorability is increasing, skewing the overall score to nearly -10%.
________
The last is
Tim Walz, and he doesn't have a graph yet because he's a new
arrival, but they do show some of the polling they use/support. Walz averages out to a POSITIVE 7.4% favorability, the only candidate that is in the
black, so to speak. He commands an almost 17 point lead over his counterpart, JD Vance. That is impressive, and with less than three months to go and
early mail voting in some states starting in one month, it's hard to imagine much of a change. But you never know...
ETA: It appears it needs to be explained how to read these graphs I posted, and inside the links. The overall score is in the upper right corner of
the graph, and is in color of what the overall favorability is. If it is in negative, the overall score is also in orange. To get to that score you
have to subtract the two ratings to get the overall one. So, for example, if Trump is 51.6% unfavorable, and 43.4% favorable, his overall is negative
8.2%.
edit on 10-8-2024 by Mahogani because: (no reason given)