Election Day is just two weeks away. (Of course, thanks to early voting, for most Americans, Election Day is in October.) As the election comes more into focus, you’re probably wondering what the polls say about Kamala Harris’ chances of becoming president. And how much can these polls even be trusted? Do the pollsters believe women will remember Dobbs in the voting booth? Or will the economy and immigration trump reproductive rights?
To answer these these urgent questions and more, polling expert Anna Greenberg went live on Instagram on Oct. 17 with managing digital editor Roxy Szal.
Greenberg is an award-winning pollster with 30 years of experience in public opinion research. She has helped Democrats up and down the ballot get elected—from Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, to Rep. Marilyn Strickland up in Washington state, to Mayor Kirk Watson, right here in Austin where I live.
Watch the video below, or read on for a transcript, lightly edited for clarity.
Roxanne Szal: Thanks everyone for joining. My name is Roxy Szall. I’m the managing digital editor here at Ms. magazine. I’m standing in for Kathy Spillar today. I’m here with Anna Greenberg. She is an award-winning pollster. She has helped Democrats up and down the ballot get elected, from Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, to Rep. Marilyn Strickland in Washington state, to Mayor Kirk Watson here in Austin, where I live. So she’s going to help us ride that poller coaster all the way to Election Day.
Anna was actually one of the pollsters that we interviewed for our feature article in the latest issue. If any of you are already Ms. members, you know that the cover looks like this: “Vote: Your Life Depends on It.” And the main article in this issue is called “This Election, It’s Women’s Choice.” And Anna, you were interviewed by Jodi for this article.
So today I’m going to be asking Anna some of the questions that you all sent in. We’ll cover the face-off between Harris and Trump. We’ll also talk about down-ballot races, ballot measures …
Media outlets have been saying that the economy and immigration are the two most important issues for voters, but we know that the way that these questions are asked makes a huge difference. So why aren’t we seeing abortion as a top issue in some of these polls?
Greenberg: Well, it’s about how you ask the question and how you frame the answer.
If you ask somebody what’s the most important issue to you and your life in this moment, on this day, most people aren’t going to say abortion unless they need one, or they’re having some challenges with their pregnancy, or some other thing. Most people are worried about paying their bills. They’re worried about getting their kids to school. They’re worried about cooking dinner. They’re worried about all kinds of things like that.
If you ask people what they’re voting on, that’s a different question.
And the thing about abortion is, it’s not just a policy issue—it’s kind of an existential and fundamental-values issue for women voters in particular. It’s about looking at the Republican Party as a party that fundamentally is misogynistic and wants to take away women’s rights—in particular, the right to self determination. And what you see with what will be a historically high gender gap is many women voting on that issue, even if the thing that stresses them the most on any given day is paying their rent.
Szal: Why do you think abortion is such a crucial issue? We’ve seen it in the 2022 midterms, and we are anticipating seeing it again playing a pretty active role. What is it about abortion that makes it different from things like the economy or immigration?
Greenberg: Well, I don’t really think it’s an issue, and I think talking about it as a policy issue diminishes what it is, which is an existential threat to women. It’s a very real threat in places like Texas, not just existential. It is a posture that the Republican Party has taken that is misogynistic, and it includes more than just abortion, but includes birth control and IVF, but also even kind of what is the woman’s role in society, thinking about Vance’s childless cat ladies. And when you do focus groups with women voters, by the way, I’m sure all people on this interview online feel the same way, right? It feels like, wow, this is a party that kind of hates women, right? And so it gets downplayed by the media, I think, because of the kind of poll questions where it’s not the number one issue, or because they say, “Well, didn’t we do that in 2022?” or, “Is it played out? Have we done too much?”
But for voters who I talked to, it’s not an issue that’s already been settled. If anything, it’s getting worse. And we’ve seen this is 2022, not just Dobbs being overturned, but then very restrictive laws being passed are going to affect a bunch of places. Stories of women having to go to the Texas Supreme Court to be able to get an abortion to preserve fertility, stories of women in Georgia dying because they don’t get the real healthcare they need. And so the story gets worse and worse and worse, and people are aware of it.
I’ll say this: The Republicans know it. Because in three races I work in, for example, I’ve got Republicans running ads saying they’re pro-choice three weeks before the election. And these are people who, in the past, have supported abortion bans in writing, on video, right? And I mean, voters can see through it. It’s very political. Like, “Oh, three weeks out, obviously we’re pro-choice,” but the fact that Republicans are doing that in these Biden districts just shows you how problematic this is for them.
Szal: They obviously underestimated [abortion] in 2022—we weren’t seeing a lot of, “Oh, you know, I’m a Republican, but I’m pro choice” as much as we’re seeing it. Now, does that have you worried at all?
Greenberg: No. I think part of what is frustrating to me, as somebody who’s worked on gender and politics for 30 years as an academic and as a political consultant, is people rediscovering women voters every two years, as if they are not the majority of the electorate, more likely to vote than men, especially Black women. And so every election has been profoundly gendered.
Since 2016, just as much as things have been driven by racial attitudes, they’re also driven by what we call hostile sexism. If you think about a variety of questions about gender in the home, for example, or taking care of children. People who score high on the hostile sexism scale are very likely to vote for Trump, not surprisingly, or vote for Republicans, right? And so the idea that you could take already a very gendered political environment, again, which was really intense in 2016 with Clinton and the Women’s March, right? And then put fuel on the fire by repealing Roe, and then, etc, etc. It isn’t a surprise at all. But if you rediscover women voters every election, well, then maybe you’re surprised that they have clues about their right to their body, for example, or maybe wanting to work or be respected.
Szal: I love that phrase “rediscover women’s voters.” I think that’s happening quite a bit.
There are 10 states this election with abortion-related ballot measures on the ballot. How do you think this will affect the outcome of the presidential election and of down-ballot races?
Greenberg: I think it really depends on where it is. You know, in a state like Arizona, for example, you already have a competitive presidential [race] and a somewhat competitive, but high profile Senate race. I think turnouts will be off the charts in Arizona. So I think that the abortion initiative may not add any more because it’s probably going to be so high.
But I think in states that don’t have competitive presidential [races], don’t have competitive Senate or gubernatorial, it could have a pretty significant impact.
One of the places I’ll be interested in is Florida. I think in Florida, it’s very difficult to win that Senate race, and certainly impossible presidentially, but it’ll be interesting to see. Sixty percent is a high threshold, and it would be interesting to see if it gets 60, if it reduces the margin, even though Scott and Trump are likely to win, is their margin smaller and is it because of that ballot initiative? So I think you really have to look at it state by state and case by case to really figure out what kind of impact it has on turnout.
Szal: Interesting. So you think Democrats cannot count on Florida?
Greenberg: [shakes head]
Szal: Well, we don’t need it.
Do you believe that significant numbers of undecided or Republican or Republican-leaning independents will choose Harris for her stance on abortion?
Greenberg: Well, not significant numbers.
Partisanship is a very strong predictor of vote choice. I think she’s going to get more votes among independent voters, particularly independent women. She’s winning pretty easily. But, you know, usually, traditionally, Democrats or Republicans can get 5 or 6 percent of the other party. … It’s possible she could get 7 or 8 percent, some moderate or liberal Republicans, but a lot of them have already kind of left the party.
The Republican Party has shrunk, and a lot of the mainstream establishment Republicans now are more likely to call themselves independents, and so it’s a much narrower party than it was before Trump. And you don’t really need to win nationally. Obviously, certain people like [Sherrod] Brown need to win Republicans in Ohio, so there are individuals who need to win Republicans to win [overall]. But for Harris, it’s difficult to imagine her overperforming with Republican voters.
Szal: Someone asked about Texas. Could you just speak briefly about the presidential race in Texas, the Colin Allred-Ted Cruz face-off? Any thoughts there?
Greenberg: Well, I think Trump is going to win, but he may win with a smaller margin than in the past. And I think that the Allred-Cruz race is a reach. It’s definitely close. It was close in 2018 as well. And, you know, Cruz is uniquely unpopular, and the only thing that keeps him alive is the Republican tilt of the state. But I think it really depends on turnout.
It’s actually a closer margin than Montana, and there are actually more Democrats to be mobilized in Texas than there are in Montana.
Szal: I also got a question here about third-party voting. Could you speak briefly about candidates like Jill Stein, like Cornel West, like RFK—but he’s gone?
Greenberg: He’s not gone. He’s on the ballot in Michigan, in other places, even though he’s not officially running anymore.
Third-party voting always looks high early in the election cycle and goes down and down and down and down. And generally, people who say they’re third-party voters are people who are disaffected. They don’t like either party or, you know, haven’t engaged yet. They tend to be younger, tend to be lower information, less partisan. And so eventually, as elections get engaged, you tend to see third-party drop off. And so you just expect to see 2 or 3 percent depending on the state voting third party.
A lot of those people voting third party are people who will never vote for Democrats or Republicans. So it doesn’t necessarily have that big of an impact on the presidential race. And I think that’s been true. It certainly was true in 2020 and I think it’ll probably be true this time.
Szal: This is making me feel better.
This week, maybe some of y’all saw that in Georgia, on Tuesday, the media reported a record number of ballots, something like 328,000 ballots, being cast in Georgia on that first day of early voting. Can we read into this at all? Is this a good sign for Trump? Is it a good sign for Harris? Is it too early to tell?
Greenberg: It’s actually, as of yesterday, over half a million people. About 10 percent had turned out to vote. But be careful, because Democrats vote early. There’s a couple of websites you can go to, and they’ll show you, in states that have party registration, what the registration is of people who voted. And there’s a huge Democratic tilt in early votes. So you always have to be careful, because sometimes it’s just about people.
You know, I always vote. I voted early. I voted by mail. It’s not changing the nature of the electorate that I voted early, right? So you have to be a little careful. But it is definitely a good sign.
It’s not just high in Georgia. It’s high in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well. And this good sign is trending Democratic, so it’s a good sign.
Michael McDonald, who is a professor at the University of Florida who does a lot of this work, said obviously you have to be careful about reading into things, but it’s a sign that there aren’t tons of hidden Trump voters when you see such a robust Democratic turnout in early votes. So it’s very exciting.
What I’ll leave you with, since we’re coming to the end, is that people always ask me what’s going to happen—which is a pollster’s least favorite question because polls are snapshots, not predictions. But what I keep saying is, I’d rather be us than them. We’ve got better candidate quality, we’ve got more money, we have a better field program, and we’ve got a better set of issues. And so, you know, I feel pretty good.
Szal: Can you speak a little bit about subsections of voters? You know, I’m hearing so much chatter about Black male voters, Latino male voters, and hand-wringing. Should we read into that? Is that something that we worry about?
Greenberg: I wouldn’t. I think those conversations are distractions. Whether or not it relates to what the Harris campaign is doing or not, the national conversation about it is a sort of big distraction. And I’m saying this empirically, not as a value judgment, but young Black men, or young Latino men, are a very, very, very small portion of the electorate, and Democrats are still getting 50, 60, 70 percent. It’s closer to 70 with Black men, sort of 50 with Hispanic men. And so we’re talking about a very small number of voters—and so I conspiratorially feel like part of this is driven by the right to try to get all the national coverage being about Democrats trying to get minority voters to vote for them, which of course, we are, and they do.
But you know, that’s the narrative, the racist narrative, that whether it’s the immigration ads or the defund ads. You know, all the racist stuff that Trump does, part of me feels like this conversation is part of that effort to say Democrats only care about minority voters. And so I think it’s a bit of a distraction.
Szal: Interesting. So you’re saying don’t play into it, and don’t read too much into it.
Greenberg: I mean, look, younger people of color are less Democratic. And things are not set in stone. Electors change, people change. Younger Black voters did not live through the civil rights movement in the fight for the right to vote. Younger Hispanic voters are English-speaking and tend to have been born here and look more like white voters. Why would we ever expect anything to be static in our country? So it’s not suggesting that there isn’t lower support for Democrats. Let’s understand that that’s a real thing based on real experiences that people have, and then it’s also overstated in its impact on the election.
Szal: Well, we’re coming to the end of the call. Any last comments that you want to say, Anna?
Greenberg: Try not to look at the public polling. It’s going to make you crazy. It’s been stable, more than anything. It really hasn’t changed all that much since September. Everything’s close. It was close in ’16. It was close in ’20. There’s nothing different. We were able to win in 2020. We can win in 2024.
Szal: All right. With that, thank you so much, Anna, thank you for your time. Bye all.
This to Ava Slocum for editorial support with this transcript.
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