In its final poll before Election Day, AtlasIntel, the most accurate pollster from 2020, showed former President Donald Trump, right, leading Vice President Kamala Harris, left, in a majority of the swing states. (AP)
By Jack Davis November 5, 2024 at 7:12am
In its final volley in the bewildering battle of the polls that has dominated the final days of the presidential campaign, the pollster dubbed the most accurate in 2020 has delivered big news for former President Donald Trump.
In polling done Sunday and Monday, AtlasIntel noted that the contest is very, very close.
According to a post on X, its final poll showed Trump at 49.2 percent support while Harris is at 48.1 percent. Third-party candidates ate up 2.7 percent of the votes.
ATLAS POLL – U.S. ELECTIONS
In the final Atlas poll before the election, the gap between Trump and Harris has narrowed to just 1.1 percentage point.
🔴 Trump: 49.2%
🔵 Harris: 48.1%
⚪ Others/Undecided: 2.7% pic.twitter.com/YUcBRJiq0l— AtlasIntel (@atlas_intel) November 5, 2024
Because of the Electoral College, in which the contest is won state by state, overall support is not the same as winning the election. Mammoth blue states, such as New York and California, pad the popular vote margins of Democratic candidates. That puts significance on swing states with enough members of each party that the race can go either way.
(Is Trump going to win the election? Become a Western Journal Member to gain access to our rundown of Trump’s paths to victory.)
And on that front, AtlasIntel had very good news for Trump.
In Arizona, Trump led Harris 51.6 percent to 46.5 percent, according to a post on X.
ATLAS POLLS – SWING STATES
Among the battleground states, Trump leads in Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina, while narrowing the 2020 margins in Virginia and Minnesota. However, Georgia and Pennsylvania, two of the most valuable states in the Electoral College, are close. pic.twitter.com/MNZUcLXNSA
— AtlasIntel (@atlas_intel) November 5, 2024
Trump also led in Georgia, 49.9 percent to 48.3 percent; Michigan, 49.8 percent to 48.3 percent; Nevada, 50.2 percent to 47.1 percent; North Carolina, 50 percent to 47.9 percent; Pennsylvania, 49.6 percent to 48.6 percent; and Wisconsin, 49.5 percent to 48.6 percent, according to AtlasIntel.
AtlasIntel projected Harris leading Trump in Minnesota, 49.2 percent to 47.2 percent, and Virginia, 51.3 percent to 45.9 percent.
Finally, here’s how the most prolific pollsters fared in the general election.
The best-performing pollster was AtlasIntel!
Second was Trafalgar!
Yeah, they incorrectly had Trump winning a few states, but they were close on the margins, and that’s the better metric. pic.twitter.com/yqfbjCequB
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 25, 2021
After the 2020 election, polling guru Nate Silver tracked projections against reality and found that AtlasIntel was the best of any of the many companies that did polling that year, according to a post on X.
With a tight race, polls have taken an outsize importance as the candidates rise and fall in popularity — as is common in all campaigns.
A Selzer and Co. poll in Iowa and a New York Times/ Siena College poll issued over the weekend gave a rosier view of Harris’s chances of winning than had previous polls.
The Trump campaign said polls have become political weapons, according to Newsweek.
Do you think Trump will win?
“On Saturday, top Democrats appear to have received early access to an absurd outlier poll of Iowa conducted by the Des Moines Register. Not to be outdone, the New York Times arrived right on cue with another set of polling data being used to drive a voter suppression narrative against President Trump’s supporters,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.
“Some in the media are choosing to amplify a mad dash to dampen and diminish voter enthusiasm. It has not worked. Our voters are like President Trump: They fight.”
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