Exclusive poll: With 15 days to go, the Presidential race is a tie | The Excerpt
On Monday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: With 15 days until election day, a new and exclusive Paste BN Suffolk University poll shows the presidential race is a virtual tie. Paste BN Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page shares the poll’s key findings. Democrats want you to think Donald Trump is getting weirder, while Republicans say he always has been. An investigation is underway into a social media app’s leak of classified documents about Israel’s plan to retaliate against Iran. On certain college applications, fewer students are identifying their race. Paste BN Education Reporter Zach Schermele shares new data. The 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony honored a genre-stretching class that included legends like Mary J. Blige and Jimmy Buffett.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Sara Ganim:
Good morning. I'm Sara Ganim filling in for Taylor Wilson. Today is Monday, October 21st, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, what a new Paste BN Suffolk University poll says about the presidential race. Plus Democrats are taking a page from Republican's playbook and questioning Trump's age and mental fitness. And we're taking a look at why fewer students are disclosing their race in applications at selective universities.
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A new Paste BN Suffolk University poll is out. With 15 days to go until the election, what insights does it reveal? For more on this story, I talked to Paste BN Washington bureau chief Susan Page. Susan Page, thank you so much. It is two weeks and one day until election day.
Susan Page:
Yeah, Sara, and we're all counting.
Sara Ganim:
Yes, we are. All right, let's get started. So there's new polling data out, Susan. What's the big finding here?
Susan Page:
This is our latest Paste BN Suffolk University poll. It's the final poll we're taking before election day and in it we find this is essentially a tie. Kamala Harris at 45%, Donald Trump at 44% with a 3.1 percentage point margin of error. That is a coin toss race, and it is closer than our previous poll. We had taken a poll in the wake of the Democratic National Convention that had Kamala Harris up five points. That lead has now eroded.
Sara Ganim:
Well, a tie, that's not such great news for Trump.
Susan Page:
A tie is a tie, and yet it's not always a tie. This is a tie in the national popular vote. That's what we're measuring. But of course we elect presidents to the Electoral College. Republicans have an advantage in the Electoral College. That's just the way our system works because of big conservative Republican states that don't have that many people. So we think that Democrats really need to get kind of an edge in the popular vote of at least a couple percentage point if they're going to win in the Electoral College.
Sara Ganim:
Both Democrats and Republicans have been focusing on winning over Black and Latino voters, especially in swing states. What does the poll reveal about these voters?
Susan Page:
When you try to find where Kamala Harris has lost some support in the seven weeks between our previous poll and this poll, one place has been among Black voters and among Latino voters and especially among men. Now the sample size is small, so you can't draw too many conclusions, but it's clear that she's seen some of that support slip away. If you want proof of that, just look at how she's campaigning because we see her making bids targeted directly at Black and Hispanic voters and especially male voters. Last week she even had Barack Obama, a very big political gun, come out and campaign for her and make the point to Black men that in his view they should be voting for her.
Sara Ganim:
Has Kamala Harris been able to make her case to voters in terms of how her policies would differ from President Joe Biden's?
Susan Page:
This is clearly a big challenge for Kamala Harris. We found that most voters say that they need to know more about what she would do if she was president. We found that was true even of about one in four of her own supporters. So that's something that I think that she's felt some pressure to address, calls for her to address, and it's a question that voters continue to have about her.
Sara Ganim:
Is there any good news in this poll for Vice President Harris?
Susan Page:
There's some good news for Vice President Harris in this poll. One is that she's now seen narrowly as the candidate better able to bring about change. And that's important because by two to one, Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Americans want change. So the idea that she is now even with just a little bit ahead of Trump as the candidate of change, it's good news for her. But there's bad news too, by 10 percentage points, Americans say they trust Donald Trump more when it comes to the issue they care about the most and that would be the economy.
Sara Ganim:
That was going to be my last question. We always say it comes down to the economy. So who has the advantage on that issue?
Susan Page:
So Trump has the advantage when it comes to the economy. He continues to have an advantage on immigration. But we do see a big advantage for Kamala Harris on the issue of abortion access. And that's a wild card in this race. It's something that has delivered for Democrats in the polls since Roe v. Wade was overturned. We'll see just how powerful it turns out to be in two weeks.
Sara Ganim:
Susan Page is the Washington bureau chief for Paste BN. Susan, thank you so much.
Susan Page:
Sara, it was great to be with you.
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Sara Ganim:
Is Trump exhausted? With election day fast approaching and poll numbers continuing to shift, Democrats are stepping up the scrutiny of Trump's physical age and mental fitness targeting him for every gaffe, non-sequitur and instance of unusual behavior. And there's been plenty of material for them to draw on. In his last few public speeches, the 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee has done or said things that are somewhat unusual even for him, like bopping to the beat of his Spotify playlist for 40 minutes during a swing state rally and criticizing former President Abraham Lincoln for not settling the Civil War. Then there was riffing on the locker room gossip about a pro golfer's male anatomy. So Trump's opponents are getting a lot of opportunity to label him as unhinged or worse. They're especially taking a play from his own playbook, seizing on the opportunities to question his health just as Republicans did with President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race.
But some experts and critics have argued that Trump has always been this way. He's unpredictable and he's erratic and that's part of his personality, and an even bigger part of his appeal. One language expert told Paste BN that his speech patterns have not changed much over the years, but lately Trump has been canceling appearances. Politico reported that he is "exhausted." Trump so far has refused to release detailed health records.
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An investigation is underway into the leak of classified US intelligence documents detailing Israel's plan for a retaliatory strike on Iran. House Speaker Mike Johnson said this on Sunday. Johnson told CNN's State of the Union that he would receive a briefing on the probe later in the day. The documents which were revealed on the Telegram messaging app last week appear to have been prepared by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. They describe US interpretations of Israeli Air Force and Navy planning using satellite imagery from October 15th and 16th. The Pentagon has said it's looking into the leak.
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At selective colleges, fewer students are disclosing race on their applications. My colleague Taylor Wilson caught up with Paste BN education reporter Zach Schermele to discuss.
Taylor Wilson:
Hello Zach.
Zach Schermele:
Hey Taylor. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for hopping on today, Zach. So let's just start with this. What does the data really show about fewer students disclosing their race or ethnicity in these applications to top schools?
Zach Schermele:
So I think it's important for me to start out here Taylor by saying that there are tons of caveats to any analysis of the data that's out there about student enrollments right now. It can be really tricky to compare the data that colleges release every fall because different schools do things differently and it all gets very complicated very quickly. But basically there are a couple of things about all this data that are pretty clear to me right now. And one of those things is that it appears as though fewer students in this fall's class of college freshmen chose to disclose their race or ethnicity in their college applications to some of the most selective schools in this country. So that's based on our own review of the data plus a new data analysis that was published by an education advocacy group called Ed Reform Now.
Taylor Wilson:
And ostensibly Zach, why did these students choose not to identify their race?
Zach Schermele:
That is a really good question and I do not know the answer to it. This is a pattern that is very nuanced and it only affects a sliver of the nation's universities, but it's among a couple of early indications of the potential impacts of the Supreme Court's decision last year that effectively prohibited colleges from considering race as one of many factors in the admissions process. And at this early stage, like I said, it's tough to pin down exactly why the numbers look the way they do, but as one researcher who studies this stuff recently told me, he thinks it shows how much people are still unsure exactly what the decision means for them and how it might impact them.
Taylor Wilson:
And are we seeing dips in enrollment for any ethnicities in particular at some of these selective schools?
Zach Schermele:
Yes. So since the ruling last year, many Americans were anxiously waiting to see how these colleges' makeups would potentially change. Those numbers have been kind of trickling in and it's kind of a mixed bag, but there are some through lines that people find troubling. Again, it may or may not be related to the Supreme Court ruling, but they include a downturn in enrollment of Black and Hispanic first-year students at schools like Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford. That's according to Ed Reform Now's analysis. And on the flip side, though, other colleges like Northwestern University in Illinois and Yale University showed gains actually, not losses in those same types of students.
Taylor Wilson:
So you mentioned this landmark Supreme Court decision last year centered around using race as a factor in admissions. Let's just talk through that decision a little bit, Zach. Refresh us on what exactly they decided on this and is its impact really playing a role in this conversation we're having?
Zach Schermele:
Yes. It was a very stressful summer last summer in terms of higher education decisions from the Supreme Court. Conservatives on the court effectively banned race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities in the US, June of 2023. Highly selective universities, which by the way do not enroll the majority of US college students were most likely to consider race and admissions prior to the decision. So that means admissions at most colleges were in fact unaffected by the ruling, which is something I really don't think gets talked about enough. But still, the fraction of institutions that were impacted by the ruling includes some of the wealthiest and the most resourced schools. They are largely the type of schools in the Ivy League that offer some of the best returns on investment and the most generous financial aid policies for students with the greatest need who need it the most. So whether or not diversity is dropping at those places, it does very much matter.
Taylor Wilson:
And Zach, as you outlined in this piece, past affirmative action bans can also really offer some additional context for this moment we're seeing right now. Can you talk through that a little bit?
Zach Schermele:
An economist at Princeton University who studied California's ban on race-conscious admissions at public universities in the 90s actually said that a similar trend emerged there too, which I thought was interesting. In California's case, nearly all the students who didn't report their race ended up being white or Asian, and ultimately his research showed that the state's controversial law, which banned race-conscious admissions, caused freshmen students from underrepresented minorities to cascade into what he called lower quality colleges in the research. Past could be prologue here, but we don't know that for sure right now. I was at a dinner with a bunch of college presidents and this topic came up last month and one of them said two things that really stuck out to me. So the first was that it's a statistical fact that there are changes in enrollments at some colleges at this moment in time. But the other thing he said was, it's early days and we really just need to wait and see where the numbers go.
Taylor Wilson:
Great breakdown for us as always. Zach Schermele covers education for Paste BN. Thank you Zach.
Zach Schermele:
Thanks Taylor
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Sara Ganim:
From the ageless Cher song, If I Could Turn Back Time to the Dave Matthews Band, So Much to Say, the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony honored a genre stretching class that includes legends like Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Kool & The Gang, Foreigner and Peter Frampton, the iconic awards for musical excellence were also bestowed to Dionne Warwick, MC5, Norman Whitfield, and posthumously Jimmy Buffett. While the Musical Influence Award went to a trio of blues heroes, Alexis Korner, John Mayall, and Big Mama Thornton. The 5.5 hour Show aired live on Disney+ from Cleveland on Saturday. And you can catch it again as an edited 3 hour broadcast special on ABC on January 1st with a replay on Hulu and Disney+ starting on January 2nd.
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Thanks as always for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Sara Ganim, filling in for Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.