LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — He’s always warned us not to place too much emphasis on election polls until we get deep into October. Now that we’re here, Dr. Stephen Voss, the University of Kentucky Political Science professor, thinks they are accurate.
“We’re still, if you believe the polls, looking at a toss-up election. It's not only a toss-up at the national level, but it's a toss-up in 7 different battleground states, which is a large still to have unsettled right now,” Dr. Voss said on Tuesday, exactly 14 days until Election Day.
Dr. Voss pointed to the New York Time tracking poll that shows all 7 battleground states polling as a coin flip.
“Within in one percent, well within the margin of error,” he said of that battleground state poll.
Dr. Voss said to it’s okay to believe the polls, but not necessarily the predictions some are basing off those polls.
“That’s who you shouldn’t believe, the people who claim to see certainty in data that aren’t at all certain,” he said.
He did point to those looking into sections of the data a bit more closely, such as those seeing minority men apparently breaking for Donald Trump more than usual or another poll that shows white men who didn’t attend college leaning more toward Vice President Kamala Harris now, which has some momentum.
Early voting, which has been strong in many states, Dr. Voss believes, isn’t a reliable indicator either, since this is our first Presidential election, with early voting that wasn’t induced by a pandemic.
“We really don't have a good basis of comparison for early voting patterns to figure out what those tea leaves are saying and how we should read them,” Dr. Voss said before reminding us again to expect a very close race.
