No one really knows because, like every election, pollsters are extrapolating their best guess based on a set of assumptions. But unlike previous elections, the assumptions are getting bigger.

According to Dave Wasserman, the U.S. House editor at the Cook Political Report, the big problem is that “response rates suck.”

“We’re down to 1 percent of people on a good day who are willing to talk to a pollster for free,” he told The Daily Beast. (snip)
Fowler told The Daily Beast that voters need to know who is behind a poll and why—that not all “snapshots” of a race are equal, that some polls this year are “not realistic,” and that on the whole, the media and pundits could do a better job filtering the signal from the noise.

“There have been partisan polls released in Georgia that have Republican candidates ahead by 14 points in a state that was decided by 12,000 votes in 2020, which is not realistic,” Fowler said, “while nonpartisan polls essentially have the governor and Senate races as neck-and-neck tossups that will be determined by who shows up more before polls close.”

On Saturday, the number of ballots submitted surpassed 39.1 million, the number cast in 2018, according to data maintained by the United States Elections Project. This year’s total will grow because election officials are still receiving ballots through the mail and some states allow in-person early voting through the weekend. As of Sunday morning, voters had cast more than 39.2 million early votes.