As Groups Have Shifted, Has It Become a ‘Normal’ Election?

Labor Day usually marks the start of the heart of campaign season, but this year it felt like a lull — a brief respite after two tumultuous months.

At the end of it all, the presidential campaign almost feels as if it’s back to “normal.” The candidates fought over the issues and their agendas. There were no questions about whether a candidate was going to drop out. And if the polls are any indication, public opinion is finally settling into something more like normal as well.

Just take a look at the New York Times/Siena College polling averages, which have been updated since Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s departure from the race (a return to normal in its own right). There’s no sign of the political chaos of the last few months. Instead, the results look typical: Nationwide, Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump by 3 percentage points, 49% to 46%. Across the battleground states, the race is a dead heat. In every state and nationwide, the polling average is within 1.5 points of the result of the 2020 presidential election.

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In short, the polls finally show the close election that analysts expected a year ago, before President Joe Biden’s candidacy went off the rails. If anything, it’s even closer than expected: The polling averages today are closer than the final preelection polling in any presidential election in the era of modern polling — closer than 2000, 2004 or 2012, let alone 2016 or 2020.

The uncommon demographic patterns of the last year — the erosion of support for Biden among traditionally Democratic groups — have been fading as well. But here there are a few more vestiges of what we saw in the unusual Biden-Trump polling. In some cases, it’s a bit of a surprise. Here’s how the race is — or isn’t — returning to normal.

The Return of the Generational Divide

The Democratic lead among young voters is back. In high-quality polls over the last month, Harris leads Trump by an average of 20 points among the youngest reported demographic cohort (whether that be 18-29 or 18-34 in a given poll). The same polls showed Biden and Trump tied among young voters in July. Older voters, meanwhile, have barely edged at all toward Harris. Put it together, and the usual generational divide in American politics has returned.

That said, the polling isn’t entirely typical. Harris still leads among seniors, a group that postelection studies found had tilted slightly toward Trump in 2020. The gap between the current polling of seniors and the estimated result among them in the last election isn’t especially large. But it’s an eye-popping difference nonetheless.

It’s hard to be sure whether Harris’ strength among seniors is because the aging of the boomers is helping Democrats, or because the polls are just wrong and struggling to reach Trump’s supporters, or because Democrats and Biden had actually been faring better among seniors than previously estimated all along. Whatever the explanation, it’s not a statistical fluke due to small sample sizes: Polls have shown Democrats faring surprisingly well among seniors for a while now, including before the 2020 election.

One additional data point for the thought-provoking possibility that Democrats have simply been stronger among seniors all along: the authoritative Pew NPORS study. It found Democrats either tied or ahead of Republicans among seniors in leaned party identification in each of its annual surveys over five years, which together have more than 7,000 total respondents over 65. Similarly, more seniors said they backed Biden than Trump in 2020 in each survey.

A Rebound Among Black and Hispanic Voters

Trump’s strength among Black and Hispanic voters was one of the most surprising trends of the cycle. With Harris as the Democratic nominee, it’s no surprise that Trump has come back to earth.

In the past month of high-quality polls, Harris has a 78-14 lead among Black voters and a 52-41 lead among Hispanic voters. The Times/Siena battleground state surveys showed similar results, with Harris ahead 80-15 among Black voters and 52-42 among Hispanic ones. In each case, Harris is about halfway between Biden’s weakened standing before he dropped out of the race and his stronger estimated finish in the 2020 election.

While this is certainly closer to typical, “normal” is not quite the right term for the current numbers. Trump’s tallies today — 14% support among Black voters and 41% among Hispanic voters — would still represent the highest level of backing a Republican presidential candidate has received in preelection polls since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Harris may still make additional gains among these groups over the last two months. It’s also possible that the polls are overestimating Trump’s strength or that many of Trump’s Black and Hispanic supporters simply won’t turn out to vote.

But it’s also starting to become conceivable that Trump will post some of the best results on record for a Republican among voters of color — and that he will do so against a Black Democratic candidate who also has South Asian heritage. It would not amount to a “racial realignment,” but it would be a development with important consequences for the future of American politics.

The Engagement Gap Is Fading

One of the most unusual features of the polling over the last year was Biden’s pronounced weakness among less engaged voters, even as he held his own among the kinds of voters who propelled Democratic success in midterm and special elections.

This pattern has faded a bit since Harris’ entry into the race, though it’s not gone altogether. In the last Times/Siena battleground state polls, Harris trailed by 6 points among voters who didn’t vote in the 2022 midterms, compared with Biden’s 15-point deficit in May. The latest Cook Political Report surveys show a similar pattern, using slightly different definitions of political engagement.

Less engaged voters, of course, are probably those who are least tuned in to all the drama of the last two months. We’ll see how they shift over the final stretch.

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