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Originally Posted by #-3
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Came here to post this too. Really emphasizes the “Coin Flip” nature of this race currently, and why battleground states are basically all that matter in the electoral college. General public polling is a good temperature probe in the country but only a sliver of the population actually has the ability to impact change.
However I’d be hesitant to read too much into any projection model. They are built based on lessons of elections-past, and this round is so unique:
-One of the candidates just entered the race about as late as possible
-One of the candidates is running for a third time and has a huge online presence in the age of social media, making him essentially the most well known candidates to voters ever
-One of the candidates just survived an assassination attempt
-One of the candidates is a felon
-One of the candidates is an incumbent VICE President
-There is a chance the candidates never debate each other
-A third party candidate (with a polling support greater than the margin between the two main candidates in all battleground states) just endorsed one of the main party candidates
I’m sure that I am missing some. There are also other “speculative” possible impacts of race features that haven’t been as prominent in the past, such as the influence of AI targeted propaganda, and the effect of what feels like increasingly diverse voter registration and turnout hurdles. Compound that with the reality that voters increasingly operate in curated echo chambers, and I don’t envy anyone trying to predict this race.
So while I will follow 538’s projections daily because that’s the best we’ve got, unless it gives a candidate >95% chance I’m not going to read too much into it.