It's hard to figure out sometimes which polls to believe during the election season.
Election projections have been all over the place. Some national polls show Vice President Kamala Harris with a slight advantage while some notable pollsters believe Donald Trump is leading in the race for the White House. Regardless, we won't have an answer on who will win until election day, or maybe, but hopefully not, a day or two after.
Robert Cahaly, Chief Pollster of the Trafalgar Group, said every polling group has up and down years but it's the cumulative that really matters.
"Some of these groups are just historically bad," he said. "In the modern era, you just can't get over how wrong they've been."
There were some "ridiculous" error rates from some groups in 2020, according to Cahaly, and the experience of some other polling companies has really shown in recent years. Some had error rates over 5%.
"Some are just bad at it and some are just putting their thumb on the scales," Cahaly said.
Trafalgar Group always polls at least 1,000 people regardless of the state and uses different collection methods. They'll do live calls and send out texts and emails with quick and simple questions.
"You make a lot less error when you poll more people," said Cahaly.
Cahaly is projecting an election similar to 2020 in regards to a massive turnout with large amounts of mail-in ballots about to come in. Through their polling, he was also surprised at the support shown from Gen Z males for Trump with a notable gender gap between Gen Z males and females. Trump has also been polling better with black voters this year than in 2016 and 2020.