Extra: Reading The Election's Tea Leaves
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This is the Fox News Rundown Extra. I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

This week we spoke with the co-founder of Echelon Insights, Patrick Ruffini, whose organization conducts political polling. We talked about whether the polls are right and how they've changed since 2016, as well as how hard it is to reach certain voters now. We talked about shifts in voter registration as well toward the GOP, but mostly toward unaffiliated. And he gave us insights into critical swing districts and counties across the battleground states, as he says he's keeping an eye on the areas in and around smaller cities.

We often have to cut interviews down for time during the week, but thought you might like to hear this full interview. Thank you for listening. Please follow the Weekday Rundown podcast if you haven't already. Now, here's Patrick Ruffini on the Fox News Rundown Extra. Patrick, is it as close as polling indicates? I know everybody else do that.

I think it's very close. You know, Team Trump can certainly point to some good data points over the last few days in a lot of the early voting data, in the final voter registration data coming out of Pennsylvania. A lot of the hard data coming out of the states, particularly the Sunbelt states,

Point to potential turnout problems for Kamala Harris. You have electorates and Sunbelt states that are more Republican as, yes, Republicans are shifting to voting earlier this time. That's part of it. But you're also seeing lower turnout from black voters, which is historically a poor omen for Democrats.

Nationally, the polls have tightened. So about two, three weeks ago, the typical national poll had Kamala Harris up by three points. Now it's closer to one point. Obviously, we don't have a popular vote. So that's not the be all end all. But certainly, Team Trump can claim some momentum. I think the concerning piece of this for them, the big question mark for them is,

is exactly where the Rust Belt stands in that they don't necessarily have a state in which they've opened up even a small lead. I mean, yes, Trump is ahead by the tiniest of margins in the real clear politics average in Pennsylvania, but all the polls there continue to be very tight. And if they all go one direction, right, and they all, you know, if Trump falls short,

in all three of those states, that's probably the election.

have have pollsters changed their ways like i'm reading that they've shifted for example how they wait educational background um that that ended up mattering uh is that sufficient to make up for whatever's missing have have other things changed in in the polling landscape and how pollsters conduct polls given where we ended up in 2016 and 2020. sure so in 2020 um there was a lot a big deal made about waiting on education because you had a lot of polls particularly state polls

that did not wait on education and had too many college graduates in their sample. And that, you know, those college graduates voted more Democratic and pushed the polling samples more Democratic.

This year, most of the, let's say, controversy around polling has been whether you should wait to the results of the last presidential election. So Biden won the national vote by four points. So we're going to say our poll, right, is, you know, has when we ask people who they voted for in 2020, you know, a lot of those polls will have a margin of Biden by four points because they've been weighted to that.

Now, there's some controversy around that because it's certainly people don't always remember exactly who they voted for. And the election results can look different. Right. The electorate this year could look different, either more Democratic or Republican than it did in 2020.

that's fascinating because of registration data which i'm going to ask you about in a second but i was also reading that it's it's hard harder than ever to reach people for polling um and that there's this maybe still this belief that trump supporters are less likely to pick up the phone answer a poll we used to hear about the shy trump voter is it true across the board that it's been harder to reach people to to get them to answer a poll and our is there a belief that trump supporters or republicans are harder to reach

Yeah, I mean, so it certainly is true that it is harder to reach people. There are obviously new ways of reaching people. You can reach them online. You can reach them through texting. So there are a lot of ways pollsters are combating this trend, right, of people no longer have landline phones and they don't pick up their cell phone. If it's a number they don't recognize.

So it is getting certainly more complicated, more expensive, and we have to, as pollsters, really try a lot more ways to reach out to people.

You know, I do think, you know, there is an issue in some states where, you know, it has been the case that Republicans are less likely sometimes to actually take the survey. Now, that doesn't matter so much in states where we have really good data on the voter file. So we know what their party registration is. We know. Yeah.

How they, you know, how they say they voted in the past. And we can wait for that. We can adjust for that. But I'm thinking about a state like Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a state. We have very little data on voters. Right. We basically don't know very much about their partisan background. There's no really records kept on that. And so the kinds of polls that we do. Right. That rely on voter lists are.

aren't as good in a state like Wisconsin as they would be in a state like Pennsylvania, which has a lot of great data on voters. And I would imagine Michigan and Georgia too, right? They don't tell us. That's right. There's some data, but there's less data. So in Georgia, you see people focusing on race, for instance, because that is a data point that they do have on the voter file. So it's different in every state.

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Tell me about registration data. I was looking in for the seven swing states where we do have registration data. And it seems like there's this drift away from Democrats somewhat toward Republicans, but even more so to just being unaffiliated or an independent voter. What are you seeing? I think you've you've shared with some of your followers some some data out of Pennsylvania. But is this true?

Yeah, you've definitely seen Republicans have gained more than Democrats pretty much across the boards in all of the swing states, in all the battleground states that have voter registration. You've had since the 2020 election, the state has shifted by about three to four points towards Republicans. Now, part of that is a lot of people were voting Republican, a lot of registered Democrats. These are old school working class Democrats who may have been voting Republican.

may have voted for Obama, may have voted for Democrats traditionally, but moved over in the age of Trump, that what you're seeing is there are, in many cases, those voters are realigning.

their party registration, their party affiliation to become Republicans. They started voting for Trump as a Democrat for Trump, and now they're, they're a Republican. But you also have in Pennsylvania specifically a,

Among new registrants, people who have not been on the voter file before, Republicans have been, you know, outnumbering Democrats by around one. And we expect the electorate in Pennsylvania to be close to tied when it comes to party registration. So even though the registration as a whole in Pennsylvania is

Is about Democrats are ahead by about three points. You know, we just expect that, you know, given these patterns that the electorate that actually shows up will be close to tied on party registration. And that is a first. We haven't seen that in quite a long time.

Wow. So you did this great piece on slivers to look for indications in the swing states. And I just want to hit you on some of the some of your points, get your your more of a fleshed out take from you, because in Pennsylvania, you say to when it comes to former President Trump, look in places like Scranton, Lackawanna County and Wilkes-Barre and Lucerne County, even outside Erie City. And for Harris, you're saying you're telling us to look outside Harrisburg and Cumberland County,

What are you what do we know, I guess, about the recent past that indicates that that's where we should look? Yeah, I mean, I think the most interesting place to look in a lot of these swing states is you have these kind of smaller cities that.

So we're used to going into places like Philly or Detroit or really thinking about the Republican base being in urban or in rural areas. But in a lot of these states, the election really is decided in smaller cities, places like Allentown, Pennsylvania, where Trump is going tonight, places like Green Bay, Wisconsin, etc.

Places like Kalamazoo, Michigan. Right. Those tend to be the bellwethers, you know, in terms of in the way that they move sort of is a pretty good indication. If we have those results early on on election night from those counties, that's a pretty good indication of how those states are going to move.

For Kamala Harris, you know, she in many places, she's playing defense. She needs to maintain their party's historic levels of support among African-Americans. Obviously, there's been a lot of talk about African-Americans and black men in particular voting more for Donald Trump. So she needs to protect that that margin in big cities. But, you know, I think she also has has staked, particularly in Pennsylvania, a lot on outreach to suburban voters, right?

And not just in Philly, but, you know, as you said, outside Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, too, with appearances with Liz Cheney, which she thinks she can, you know, reach out to these disaffected Republicans who are not quite as favorable to Donald Trump.

Yeah, it's interesting when you look at maps, you see what you're talking about, like the smaller cities might be blue and then it it sort of starts to change color right as you move out and you get the sort of very muted color until you get into more red territory, which is obviously the more rural stuff. I think we see that a lot in North Carolina. Right. And you noted that in your piece. You write that Harris needs to sort of sweep up the suburbs of Charlotte and Raleigh. But for former President Trump in that tight state, it's those.

Like in Raleigh, for example, to the west of Raleigh, heading toward Burlington and Asheboro towards more rural areas, that that needs to be sort of where we see Trump pick up. Right.

Yeah, no, he obviously needs to run up the score right in his base areas. But you do have some interesting opportunities for him, I think, in eastern North Carolina. So a place that I think people, counties, people should be watching on election night, Nash and Wilson counties in eastern North Carolina are going to be pretty in North Carolina will come in early.

But I think if he wins those counties, I think he's on track to have a good night, at least in North Carolina. If he wins them by a few points pretty decisively, he could have a good night nationally. But where Trump has the opportunity...

I think you have eastern North Carolina where you have a more diverse population, a more socially conservative black electorate in the rural areas where I think he could make inroads. And we have seen turnout for Kamala Harris in the early voting. Yeah.

And so I would look to particularly that, you know, those again, those outlying areas outside of Charlotte, outside of Raleigh that are more working class, plus eastern North Carolina for Trump. Yeah. And, you know, for all your talk of Wisconsin about how we don't have that much data, you do tell us that we should be looking because that most of the state is sort of a foregone conclusion, it sounds like. But if it if if you're stuck, you're telling us to look.

Green Bay area, Appleton, Oshkosh that Trump did well there in 2016, but just but just barely. And then Biden got it back in 2020. So your eyes are right up there, right? That's right. That's right. I think, again, the small the smaller cities where, you know, that are pretty close to even right now in terms of me.

Maybe the counties are a little bit Republican, but even the urban areas, right, are pretty are pretty close to tide. But they did shift in Biden's direction in 2020. So I think I'll be looking to see, particularly in Wisconsin, if he can get those places back. OK, finally, Dana Prino told us this week Republicans are more motivated to vote when they think they're winning and Democrats are more motivated to vote when they're losing. Who do you think?

you know a few days out who's more motivated right now i don't know i i think there are signs and even in our polling of just increased trump enthusiasm from you know where we were a month ago a month ago i always said you know i'd rather maybe slightly be kamala harris

So the question is, does that cancel out what I think was Harris's advantage maybe a month ago? I'm not I'm not 100 percent sure. I think that certainly the balance of enthusiasm has shifted back to back to Republicans. But like I said, there is such a thing as peaking too soon. Right. And and, you know, to some extent.

You know, you kind of want to peak on Election Day, right, rather than peak 10 days out or a week out or two weeks out. That's that sort of thing. So I think, you know, I'll be looking I'll be looking to see if Trump can keep the momentum going. With that said,

There's still going to be a lot of the vote that's already been cast. So about probably around the third of all the votes have been already people are already spoken for. So that limits, I think, the potential that we'll see this kind of late movement in this race. Wow. Patrick Graffini, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

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