Talk:Nationwide opinion polling for the 2024 United States presidential election

Who Funds Polls?

Should this article identify who commissioned and paid for each poll? Sometimes this information is related to the results (Democratic-funded polls are statistically more likely to show favorable results for Democrats and Republican-funded polls more likely to show favorable reports for Republicans), as well as to which candidates get included in the polls and which candidates do not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StarchildSF (talk • contribs) 02:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Candidate Missing

Why isn't Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver listed anywhere in this article? Are all the polls really failing to include him, or is the article missing the polls that do? Perhaps there should be an introductory paragraph talking about who's actually running, versus who gets included in the polls, and why (e.g. campaigns with lots of money paying for the polls). — Preceding unsigned comment added by StarchildSF (talk • contribs) 01:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is one poll I found without too much trouble which has a question that does include Chase Oliver, along with fellow independent candidates RFK Jr., Jill Stein, and Cornel West:

https://law.marquette.edu/poll/

Can someone good with formatting changes add this to the article? Starchild (talk) 02:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that Oliver should be included in the table. Polls have started including him lately, and he'll be on the ballot in 40 states so I think nationwide polling on him is relevant. Benintogo (talk) 22:31, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Rearranged sections

I rearranged the sections so they're in a nice cascading order:

• Biden-Trump
• Biden-Trump-Kennedy
• Biden-Trump-Kennedy-West
• Biden-Trump-Kennedy-West-Stein

The previous order made no sense whatsoever. Woko Sapien (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the polls including all the candidates should be listed before those which give a false impression of the race by failing to include some of those who will be on voters' ballots. Starchild (talk) 02:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Remove Harris v Trump

I'm not sure why we ever had one of the many hypothetical matchups listed among the actual contest. But Trump and Biden are now the presumptive nominees and Harris is not running. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:22, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I vote that we remove the Harris-Trump polling table. It's purely hypothetical at this point and the sources used don't appear to be actively updating those match-ups anymore.

While we're on the subject, is there any value to keeping the Biden-Trump-Kennedy-West table separate from the B-T-K-W-Stein table? It looks like Race to the WH uses the same numbers for both match-ups now under "National + 3rd Party" with Stein included in the line graph, but not the bar graph. Woko Sapien (talk) 16:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I concur, with the obvious caveat that we can revisit this subject as aggregators change their behavior, or new aggregators emerge. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:31, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense to me! Woko Sapien (talk) 19:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Well this aged poorly. Lortep (talk) 13:36, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Michelle Obama

Hello.

I found the following highly relevant information, and would greatly appreciate if it can be incorporated into the article in an appropriately structured manner. Thanks in advance for any help.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll among 892 registered voters released on July 2, 2024, Michelle Obama was the only listed Democrat option who would defeat Trump in a confrontation, with 50% of the votes for Obama versus 39% for Trump. 55% of the voters also had a favourable view of Obama versus 42% toward Trump.

David A (talk) 05:45, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Spinoff Biden polls?

The polls with Biden are a sizable chunk of the article, and will end up needing to in some way be separated from those of his ultimate replacement for the Dem party nominee.

I propose spinning off the polls for matchups with Biden into its own article. Or perhaps spin-off all polls conducted prior to July 22 into a separate article, as the dynamic of the race has shifted so drastically now. SecretName101 (talk) 19:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Has that arcticle opened yet? If not, i think that it should be added onto this arcticle Leikstjórinn (talk) 17:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Polling By race or ethnicity

I was just thinking if they have polling based on Demographics By race or ethnicity, We should add them to this page, just like they had polling based on Demographics in the Nationwide opinion polling for the 2016 United States presidential election by demographic.

Polling for White Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and so on.Muaza Husni (talk) 13:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Additional aggregator

270 to Win now has a Harris-Trump two-way aggregate as well as a Harris-Trump-third parties aggregate. https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/national This should be included SecretName101 (talk) 19:39, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Table averages

In the margin column on the overall average row for each matchup table, are we averaging the margins in the above rows, or taking the margin between the averages of the leading candidates? 103.8.18.128 (talk) 22:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding VP selection note on polling chart

Should we add the date/selection of Vance/Walz as their party's respective VP nominees to the polling chart? A note like that one that currently informs readers of the date/when Biden dropped out and Harris announced her campaign? Sometimes VP pick announcements have an impact on polls (which we could see in the fallout of Vance's cat lady comments). I think it would be an interesting note to add so we could see the change in polling trends post-VP announcement. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 21:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

While I feel that's valuable info, I also think it could steer too far into providing commentary. The 2024 United States presidential election article might be a better fit for that sort of thing. 103.8.18.128 (talk) 21:43, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Opinions of this edit

I really dislike this change [1], but want to solicit input rather than reverting. The aggregators names used to go directly to the source; now they go to their WP articles (or often redlinks). I understand why this may be preferable to some and more in line with other WP articles, but given the purpose and nature of this article, this is a big downgrade to me. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I dislike it too, though I get what they were trying to do (follow the WP:EL guideline). I began creating redirects to deal with some redlinks without the need to edit each article (there are so many edits just like this one). I quickly found that this would still take too much of my time. I haven't completely gone through my watchlist, but from what I have seen, it looks like this editor may have refined their method at some point to reduce the amount of redlinks. I don't know what the best solution is. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 14:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Spiffy sperry I believe they would have used find/replace most likely using the code. Quinby (talk) 16:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Revert the edit. I think the intention was good, but the results are an absolute mess – just a sea of redlinks and disambiguation page links. Things were perfectly fine the way they were; this was a solution in search of problem. Woko Sapien (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's jarring, and especially inconsistent when some still link directly to the poll. I think there's a case to be made for an exception when a piece of information refers to a specific poll result. What has been done here might be better achieved by including a reference to a list of pollsters. 103.8.18.128 (talk) 21:08, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

It's terrible. That must be reverted. Esterau16 (talk) 21:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

They've done it again, it seems. 121.75.183.27 (talk) 08:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. @Ost316:, please do not revert again. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:37, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

My apologies, but I did not get notified that it was reverted until this message. As noted, I was trying to get pages to follow WP:EL, in part to prevent future problems of links dying and then being repaired and ballooning the columns when {{webarchive}} gets added, as I had seen on some pages (particularly with many of the older zogby.com pages now being dead links). Recent polling tables appear to have their own format of using inline external links instead of references that are sometimes in their own column; I perhaps wrongly assumed it was an oversight compounded by editors then copying the most recent examples (Nationwide opinion polling for the 2008 United States presidential election, for example, was tagged for not following policy and I realized the issue extended well beyond that page). The external links don't always go to the polls, and instead a news story that mentions the polls, so they're not transparent, especially when the news story doesn't explain who the polling source beyond an abbreviation; I feel that internal links make the information more useful for people who don't know these polling institutions. I tried to dab or use the correct links where possible, but WP:AWB does not clearly show which are dabs or redlinks (which I don't personally find jarring and instead indicative of potential pages that should be created or unlinked if they truly are not notable), and I've built out the replacements individually as I realized the problem. I originally did not fully grasp the scope of the issues and I'm sorry for the extra cleanup that others performed before I addressed them; I also had missed links with preceding spaces and the first pass only caught the first slashes between names, which led to the noted inconsistencies. I was trying to go back and resolve these, which is why there were additional edits. I can build some more find/replace to remove specific redlinks if that is desired. —Ost (talk) 15:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Including polling since 2020... why?

Why do we include polling as far back as 2021? No one new that it would be Kamala v. Trump until like a month ago. I'm not sure 2021 polls really tells us anything about the 2024 election. Particularly given there appears to be a large span of time before Kamala became the presumptive nominee where we have little to no polls. (Courtesy ping: @Quinnnnnby). Endwise (talk) 12:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The article isn't about Kamala vs. Trump, but rather it's a list of all opinion polls for the 2024 election. It focuses on the presumptive/declared/confirmed nominees as they are most relevant to the topic, but you'll see that it also includes matchups such as Biden vs. DeSantis, or Buttigieg vs. Trump. 103.8.18.128 (talk) 22:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Polling aggregate averages

For most of this page's editing history, there seems to have been general consistency in terms of taking "Average" in the polling aggregation tables to mean the arithmetic mean, since, that is already the most typical meaning for the word "average" in a mathematical context. This also holds consistent on all of he other nationwide and statewide US election polling pages that include averages of aggregate polls. Despite the consistency, I do not believe that the matter of how averages ought to be being calculated has been directly discussed anywhere. I am bringing this up because recently (starting from the the 13th) there has been a user, 159.250.17.61, who has been editing the page using mid-range for the average values, rather than arithmetic mean. I therefore think it worthwhile to bring this topic to the talk page, to gauge thoughts in terms of how the averages should be being calculated. – Jamie Eilat (talk) 13:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the arithmetic mean should be presented. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 14:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think averages should be displayed at all. The aggregators value is already an average (sometimes weighted). Displaying multiple aggregators gives the reader the understanding that there is different ways to interpret the data. A simple mean of those values adds nothing, and implies the achievement of some greater truth. Further, the fact that we are averaging such a small set of data (often two values) decreases value added. GreatCaesarsGhost 01:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I personally would disagree with the idea that the presence of an average is "impl[ying] the achievement of some greater truth"; it's function is solely as a summarization of the numerical data. Additionally, I would say that the averaging of these figures (or at the least, the average of the margin) is (to pull an essay quote) a "relatively simple and direct mathematical calculation that reasonably educated readers can be expected to quickly and easily reproduce". I thus don't take much issue with the presence of an average (in & of itself). — Jamie Eilat (talk) 03:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

You just said two contradictory things. If it is not implying a greater truth, how is it educating readers? If I just tell you that RCP's average is 45. and The Hill's average is 49, you might be curious about the machinations that caused two observers to come to different conclusions using the same data. You might even click through and learn that RCP used a RV model when an LV was available. But an average obscures both the variance in the results and the source of those variances (i.e. the aggregators house style). GreatCaesarsGhost 14:57, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, it's a fairly basic principal of statistics that you never average averages.[2] GreatCaesarsGhost 15:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

that is the point, thank you. we can not average averages. Goodtiming8871 (talk) 11:06, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

You can average averages, but generally you only want to do this if your data sets are relatively consistent. With these aggregators, however, they don't all draw their numbers from the same set of polls, so you may wind up with a table average that includes one poll 5 times, and another poll only twice. So as the user above said, using table averages draws a conclusion that isn't necessarily up to us to decide.

But my main argument against including column averages is the consistent inability for users to calculate it correctly. So I'd be in favour of removing them. 121.98.231.4 (talk) 22:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Weird outlier poll in first diagram (but not in tables)?

According to the first diagram, one poll of ~August 15-20 has Harris at ~48% and Trump at ~52%. I cannot find anything like this in the table yet, and it is a major outlier: two contemporary polls - probably ActiVote and Outward - have the reverse, and Trump is consistently 50% or less even among the most GOP-biased pollsters. Quinnnnnby, can you clarify what happened here? 2A02:8071:5BD0:D4C0:0:0:0:A265 (talk) 02:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'm aware it is an outlier but I cannot decide myself whether to exclude them just for being an outlier. All polls are normalised (with others/undecideds removed), which is why you cant find the exact numbers. Regards, Quinby (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, but my complaint it's not that it's an outlier, but that I can't find it in the data tables - i.e., that it fails WP:CS. 2A02:8071:5BD0:D4C0:0:0:0:A265 (talk) 03:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

It normalises all polls, so a 49/45 becomes roughly a 52/48. In all polls, 1 candidate will be above 50% because others and undecideds are removed. There is another graph for polls with other candidates. Quinby (talk) 08:59, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

What events do we include?

Major events noted in the polls are ones that explain odd shifts in the polls, like when Joe Biden's withdrawal led to a surge in Harris's polling. In that case, why are we including the DNC, RNC, and Kennedy's suspension? None of these events have changed polling numbers between Harris and Trump, and we didn't include the DNC/RNC in past elections. Realsmartcraft (talk) 01:34, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not personally a fan of including events on this page, as it can veer too far into providing commentary on polling trends. There's better pages for that information such as 2024 United States presidential election. I feel notable events on this page should maybe be limited to events that impacted which candidates are represented in the polling. 103.8.18.128 (talk) 02:39, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Good point, it has been standard convention in other Wiki polls to only include deaths, withdrawals and candidate launches. Realsmartcraft (talk) 03:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Improvements needed to second loess graph

The time axis range should be shortened to make data more visible:start from mid 2021 (there's no datapoints before that) and end within 2024 (no need to extend to 2025). 176.200.207.225 (talk) 09:05, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

It is useful context to see the entire election to election timeline, and also the 'extension' to 2025 is automatic because the 2024 election is so late in the year. The lines represent the elections. All other graphs follow these precedents. Quinby (talk) 14:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I have run into a possible issue

For some reason, the page doesn't show the bar for when RFK Jr. dropped out, even if I look at changes made to the article prior to when this presumed change would've been made. ThrowawayEpic1000 (talk) 21:50, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Polls for swing states?

Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election lists polls per state, including the swing states. Should this article focus on the polls of those swing states? Uwappa (talk) 09:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

RFK Jr Aggregates

With RFK Jr. remaining on the ballot in many states (including Michigan and Wisconsin), should aggregates that include him be moved out of "hypothetical polls"? There are still voters that are going to vote for him, and his presence on the ballot can still affect the election by acting as spoiler. Additionally, many aggregates still include him in their 3rd party aggregates. CountyCountry (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with moving those aggregates out of hypothetical polling. — Jamie Eilat (talk) 17:54, 14 September 2024 (UTC)