Pollsters have been getting it “wrong” in the final days of the 2024 presidential race by overlooking a “massive shift” in voter registration since the last election — which could tip the scales in favor of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, a veteran GOP strategist says.
Alex Castellanos, who has worked on campaigns for Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, told Fox News’ “Special Report” that the polls — which show a razor-thin margin between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — are disregarding a “wavelet out there of Republican enthusiasm.”
“What I think they’re missing is a massive shift in voter registration underneath all of this. Thirty-one states have voter registration by party. Thirty of them in the past four years have seen movement toward Republicans,” the longtime strategist said late Sunday.
“I think there’s, I’m not going to call it a wave, but I think there’s a wavelet out there of Republican enthusiasm and registration. If I register to vote Republican, whether I’m switching or new, what am I going to do?”
Castellanos suggested the failure to recognize that boost was to blame for the lack of statistical variation in the polls coming out in the final stretch before Election Day.
“I think the pollsters are getting this wrong. We’re all missing something, because they’re giving us the same poll over and over again. There isn’t even statistical variation,” Castellanos said.
“It’s like they’re telling us we’re watching a basketball game where every play’s a jump ball.”
It comes as a handful of fresh polling over the weekend showed six of the seven battleground states so close that they are within the margin of error — with the only one showing a clear leader being Arizona, where former Trump is up by four points.
Trump captured a 49% to 45% advantage in the Grand Canyon State, while two others show him tied with Harris — with each getting 48% in Pennsylvania and 47% in Michigan, according to the final batch of swing state polling from the New York Times and Siena College.
Harris eked out narrow leads within the margin of error among likely voters in Nevada (49% to 46%), North Carolina (48% to 46%), Wisconsin (49% to 47%) and Georgia (48% to 47%).
Meanwhile, other prominent analysts — including polling data guru Nate Silver — have also begun raising questions about polls in recent days, alleging that some pollsters could be “herding” results with decisions aimed at showing a close race to avoid being an outlier.