Currently, everyone is watching Pennsylvania, which may be the state that determines America’s fate. The poll that we commissioned Rasmussen Reports to conduct reveals that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are tied at the top of the ticket, with each receiving 48% of the respondents’ theoretical votes if an election were held today. However, if you dig into the data, things start looking much more interesting and suggest that some of those Harris “voters” may still have second thoughts.

You can see my write-up about the poll results here. If you want to dig deeper into the data, as I did, you’ll find that information here. I have an advantage for that deeper dig. Because we commissioned the poll, I got an Excel spreadsheet, which means that I can make the font really big, freeze panes as I scroll, and hide rows and columns with information that I temporarily want to ignore. Doing those things makes it easier to process all the data.

Image by AI.

The poll got responses from 517 Democrats, 514 Republicans, and 171 “others.” This weighting reflected the votes in the 2020 election. It does not reflect the current registration efforts (often led by the amazing Scott Pressler) that have pushed Republicans into the “registration” lead in several significant Pennsylvania counties.  

The most obvious thing about the data—and you don’t need Excel formatting tricks to see it—is the huge disconnect between voters’ preferred candidate and their values and concerns. One would expect that if 48% of Pennsylvania’s likely voters say they’ll vote for Kamala Harris, you’d see roughly half of Pennsylvania likely voters would think they’re no worse off than they were four years ago, embrace the open border, prefer amnesty to deportation for illegal aliens in America, see the Republican party as the biggest threat America faces, believe that Kamala would be more competent to handle the economy, national security, and immigration, and support the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Yup. That’s what you’d expect. However, your expectations would be completely wrong. Instead, the poll data show that

So, why the disconnect? We could be looking at a “shy Tory” phenomenon here. In the early 1990s in the UK, Tory politicians won at a greater rate than the polling had predicted. The suspicion then was that conservative voters did not want to admit that fact. However, the current assertion is that the problem wasn’t “shy” conservatives; it was that the polls under-sampled conservatives.

However, the problem here cannot be under-sampling because we’re not looking at a disconnect between polls and votes. Instead, we’re looking at a disconnect between candidates and voter values in the same poll!

Based on my political journey, I wonder if what we’re seeing here is the fact that people’s values change before they’re ready to abandon their political identity. When I started abandoning the Democrat party, the ten-step process went this way:

1. I don’t agree with the Democrat party on “X” policies.
2. Whoa! This is creepy. I agree with the Republicans on “X” policies.
3. I can’t vote for a Republican!
4. Ya’ know, the Republicans are right about a lot of things.
5. I can no longer vote as a Democrat.
6. I really agree with the Republicans, but I can’t stand their candidate.
7. I’m registering as an Independent.
8. I’m going to vote for the Republican candidate but I am so not telling anyone.
9. Yeah, I’m a registered Republican. What of it?
10. Go, MAGA!

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those responding to the poll aren’t stuck somewhere on steps 7 or 8. Their values align with the MAGA movement and Trump, but they’re barely admitting it to themselves, and they’re certainly not admitting it to a pollster, even a robotic one.

Oh, there are some other interesting things the polling data show.

First, as noted above, only 7% of likely voters care about climate change. However, digging deeper, you’ll see that those who care least are in the 18-29 demographic (4%). Meanwhile, those 65+ and older come in at 9%, with those who are 30-39 and those who are 50-64 coming in at 8%. In other words, the most indoctrinated group of people in America when it comes to climate change—the youngsters—are turning against that relentless propaganda. That’s cool.

Second, Harris’ strongest support comes from those who are atheists and support abortion. You might remind the former that Trump did not bring about a theocracy during his first term. For the latter, remind them that Trump has completely disavowed abortion as a federal issue, and that those states that have banned abortion all have exceptions for emergencies (the recent stories about Georgia women being denied medical care are lies). Meanwhile, pro-abortion movement is not about emergencies and the first three months. It seeks unlimited abortion up to and even after birth.

There’s a saying that “the devil is in the details.” Sometimes, though, the angels are, too, and the Pennsylvania poll, even while it shows a tie at the top, indicates that a lot of people, when filling out their mail-in ballots or standing in the voting booth, may surprise themselves by voting for Trump.