Henry Olsen: US Pollster on the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

A heated exchange between the two US presidential hopefuls - with many saying Kamala Harris got under Donald Trump's skin 

The pair faced off over inflation, abortion and foreign policy in a high stakes debate in Pennsylvania. 

US Pollster Henry Olsen told Ryan Bridge that debates in the past have had a minor effect on the polls, but this race is so close that even a minor effect could transform Harris from an underdog to the favourite. 

This debate could have an impact on the polls, he said, but we won’t know for at least another week.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now you might be wondering what do the American people
think of the debate last night. Henry Olsen is a
famous polster and Washington Post columnist who is joining us
to break down exactly what the reaction has been. Just
want to read one reaction from one of our listeners
this morning, though, And I wonder how they feel about it.
That misogynistic, illiterate, adulterous, inarticulate, fat, golf hacking, university degree cheating,

(00:24):
climate change challenged, stupid culturalist, clueless, clown face painted comb over,
wearing fallon, can't string a coherent sentence together and sounds
like a five year old. Thank you very much for that, Marie.
Let's go to Henry Olsen, who is in Washington, DC
for us this morning. Henry, thank you for being on
the show. What are people thinking? What are people saying?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Generally, people think that Harris cleaned Trump's clock, that Trump
was impulsive, negative, and failed to make his points, while
Harris was good enough. And the fact that seems to
be uniform from conservatives to progressives suggests that that's pretty

(01:09):
much what viewers saw.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
To Will it translate from what we know about previous debates?
Will it translate into extra votes from swing voters.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, that's the sixty four thousand dollars question. In the past,
debates in the modern era, meaning like in the last
twenty years, have had some effect, but not a huge effect.
Of course, this race is so close it even some
effect could transform Harris into a slight underdog into a
slight favorite. I think it could, but we won't know
for another week ten days until bulls come out.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Tell us about the swing states, the battlegrounds Wisconsin and Michigan.
I was reading use today the polls. They have consistently
understated support for Trump. That happened in twenty sixteen, happened
in twenty twenty. Is that happening now? And could that
mean that we can't rely on the polls as they
are today for those battlegrounds.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think that's accurate that polls have traditionally and consistently
underestimated Republican support in those states. It's also underestimated Republican
support in North Carolina. That in twenty twenty, polls showed
that Donald Trump would lose North Carolina and the Democrat
would win the Senate seat. The fact is Republicans won

(02:27):
the Senate seat, and Trump won by about a point
and a half to two points. I would look more
at the national polls than I would at the state
level polls, because there's a pretty clear relationship between state
voting habits and national results. And the national results show,
as Nate Silver points out on his Silver Bulletin website,

(02:50):
that if the election had been held yesterday before the debate,
Donald Trump would have been the favorite to win the
electoral college. We'll see in a week or so whether
that's still the case.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
All right, interesting, We will wait and see for those numbers,
and in the meantime, I guess just remember that it
is largely all noise. Henry, thank you for that. That's
Henry Olsen with us. He is a polster in the
United States, a Washington Post columnist, and obviously an expert
on exactly how you look at the popular vote versus
the electoral college and who that might put ahead. For

(03:24):
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