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It would be odd for that result to show in polls, however I think it could be correct simply because everyone is measuring the exact same data. They should be getting results within the error margin of the correct answer. And the reason I tend to buy a dead heat is that Americans are highly polarized on almost every topic. Abortion, Israel, Ukraine, the economy, education, culture, etc. all are by now completely coded blue or red. There’s very littLe left to persuade in the middle. It’s all about the base. That should be producing a very tight race.
Even if the ground level truth is an exact tie in all the states, you would still expect more outliers than there are: there's always the luck of the draw, and it's irreducible. If someone has a process to massage the sample data enough so that these outliers never show up in the final published numbers, they're destroying information in the process.
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Interesting, except the number of people claiming to be "independent" is near all time high.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/548459/independent-party-tied-high-democratic-new-low.aspx
I'd say the bases of each party are probably smaller than it has been in a while. Lot MORE people to be persuaded.
I think its a tight race because the Democrats managed to pick a candidate that is arguably less popular and likeable with independents than Trump.
I suspect that's just because it's fashionable among Democratic party-line voters to claim independence. Has been for a long time, but the weaker Harris ticket likely encourages that more.
and not only with the voters, let's not forget that supposedly Bernie Sanders is an independent. In my opinion, the number of true independent voters in any given year is half or less of what we are told.
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