LARRY KUDLOW: Suppose tomorrow's results are one big populist surprise

Suppose tomorrow’s results are one big populist surprise and that’s the subject of the riff.  Nearly all the commentators and pollsters are calling the Trump-Harris race a toss-up that’s too close to call. Maybe so, but I can think of a couple of major patterns that pollsters may not have figured out.  

One of them is a big GOP early voting turnout, completely unlike 2020, and actually sponsored by President Trump – who actually came around on this issue. Plus, voter registration shifts seem to favor Republicans in over 30 states. Here’s two ace pollsters who appeared on Bret Baier’s “Special Report” last night. Start with Mark Penn, the Democrat. Roll tape:  

BAIER: “Which side do you want to be this evening, looking at what you’re looking at?”  

PENN: “Well, I’d rather be Trump this evening for the simple reason that there are lots and lots of polls that show a dead even but the only fact we know is Republicans have gotten a lot better in the mail-in and early voting than they ever have.” 

INFLATION RISES 2.4% IN SEPTEMBER, ABOVE EXPECTATIONS 

Here’s Republican Alex Castellanos: 

ALEX CASTELLANOS: “I think the pollsters are getting this wrong. // What I think they’re missing is a massive shift in voter registration underneath all of this. 31 states have voter registration by party – 30 of them in the past 4 years have seen movement towards Republicans.” 

Digging deeper, it just seems like Democrats are facing a massive turnout deficit in every single battleground state. Meanwhile, President Trump and Republicans are outperforming elections past, in absentee ballots and early votes cast. There’s a decline in urban voter turnout facing Democrats. 

On one of yesterday’s talk shows, former Obama adviser Jim Messina called the early vote numbers “a little scary” and, also, there are reports that early voting among Black voters is coming in much slower than 2020. Particularly in Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, and Milwaukee – to name a few.  

One other point that pollsters may be missing is that Donald Trump’s position nationally and in each battleground state is significantly better today than it was four years ago. Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Trump’s top pollster, shows that nationwide Trump has improved 7.9 points — 2.5 in Arizona, nearly 3 in Georgia, nearly 8 points in Michigan, 4.5 in Nevada, over 5 in Pennsylvania, and 6.5 in Wisconsin. 

The pay-to-play betting market, Polymarket, shows Trump as a 58-42 favorite and I wonder if these crackerjack pollsters understand how much Trump has widened his working-class coalition.  It’s a multi-racial coalition, it’s a populist coalition, it’s Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, young people, unions. 

I think this broadened coalition is a function of just how many things have gone wrong and been broken in the last four years. As a partial list: the economy, cost of living, affordability, the border, public schools, universities — to name a few. 

Mr. Trump says Kamala broke it, and he’ll fix it. That idea of “broken” is a key factor in the populist working class Trump movement.  

When he asks, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” — it’s not just campaign rhetoric, it’s deeply rooted in a broken reality.  

You could add to that: the world on fire, from Afghanistan, to Ukraine, and now the Middle East. You could add to all of that — how the Trumpian working-class coalition does not like the woke culture, with its racial and gender mandates and its hostility toward Catholics, other Christians, and religion in general. 

By the way, folks don’t want to give up their gasoline-powered cars and they look forward to $2 gas at the pump, once again.  Finally, Mr. Trump’s on stage in campaign stop after stop with some pretty interesting new faces: Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, Jr., JD Vance, and others.  

It’s not our father’s GOP. It’s not the party of big business and the rich. Trump’s new big tent will include all those traditional Republicans, but the party is no longer based on Wall Street or the Business Roundtable. Have all the smart pollsters figured this out? I really don’t think so. Just suppose tomorrow’s results are one big populist surprise. That’s the riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Nov. 4, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”