As the country anxiously waits for the results of the presidential election, here are four issues to ponder: the polls, the swing among Black and white voters, the Latino impact, and differing voter outreach strategies.

By Akshay R. Rao

November 4, 2024 at 5:58PM

Early voting in Detroit on Nov. 3. (NICK HAGEN/The New York Times)

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The country, and perhaps much of the world, will watch the U.S. presidential election returns on Tuesday with bated breath, though it appears unlikely that a winner will be determined that night, or even by the next Tuesday. So while we wait, here are four issues to ponder.

The polls

Ever since the first Gallup survey of voter intentions in 1936, polls have captivated the attention of voters and the media as a leading indicator of electoral outcomes. However, the predictive accuracy of polls has recently come into question for three reasons. First, the issue of nonresponse bias is a significant concern since those responding to polls may not be representative of the population at large. Second, random digit dialing (RDD) in the era of mobile phones frequently connects (if they connect at all) with a voter who has moved to another state but has retained the area code associated with her state of origin. Third, pollsters who recognize the need to correct for polling errors have taken to weighting their polls with the respondents past voting behavior, thus systematically under-weighting first time voters, typically young people.

Black voters

There is a mathematical error that people make when dealing with percentages called base value neglect. People often think a discount of 40% followed by a discount of 25% yields a total discount of 65%. It actually is a discount of 55%. By the same token, an 8% shift in Black voter support from Joe Biden to Donald Trump ignores the base value, the “out of how many” element. Comparatively, Kamala Harris’ gain of 4% among non-college educated whites appears woefully small. (Her support among Black voters is roughly 65%, reflecting a substantial percentage drop relative to Biden). But, in absolute terms — the number of votes such shifts might translate into — the arithmetic yields a different conclusion. There are roughly 133 million registered voters in the U.S., of which 14%, or about 18.5 million, are Black. Eight percent of that base is a little shy of 1.5 million votes. Meanwhile, non-college educated whites account for about 50% of the electorate, or 66.5 million voters. Four percent of that base is more than 2.5 million votes. So looking at absolute numbers rather than percentages that do not account for the base value will generally yield a different conclusion, something media pundits rarely consider.

Latinos

There is an important cultural difference between Latinos and the majority culture. Latinos come from an interdependent culture relative to the mainstream independent culture among the majority white population. Consequently, messaging designed to turn out the vote, particularly among those of Puerto Rican heritage, ought to emphasize their community roots and the offense caused to their cultural identity by the reprobate (and completely unnecessary) slight against their beautiful island.

Voter outreach

Outsourcing getting out the vote (GOTV) is probably going to be determinative this coming Tuesday. On this score, the two parties have chosen to employ diametrically opposite strategies. The Republicans have outsourced their GOTV effort, while the Democrats are relying on party workers and volunteers. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Oliver Williamson argued, an organization has the option of “making” something in-house (such as a sales force comprising employees and door knockers comprising campaign staff) or “buying” something in the open market (such as independent sales reps or door knockers who work for Elon Musk). In general, buying has advantages because the free market will discipline bad behavior such as shirking by damaging the agent’s chances of getting future business. But in this instance, there is no free market that will discipline door knockers who do not knock on doors because there is no market for door knockers in the foreseeable future. Therefore, in this instance, the presence of a dedicated, passionate door knocking sales force (i.e., the Democrat’s GOTV operation) ought to yield better results than a sales force motivated by money (i.e., the Republican’s GOTV operation).

In sum, and consistent with the Harris campaign slogan, this is beginning to feel like a Bobby McGee election: “Freedom” is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Akshay R. Rao holds the General Mills Chair in Marketing and is chairperson of the marketing department at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. His latest book, Patient, is available at profakshayrao.com.