TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Tony Fabrizio and David Lee – Fabrizio Lee & Associates
SUBJ: One Media Organization Poll Got It Right
DATE: November 19, 2024
Fabrizio Lee & Associates, in coordination with GBAO Strategies, conducted a national poll of registered voters from October 19-22, 2024 on behalf of the Wall Street Journal. When comparing the results of this poll to vote counts and AP VoteCast data as of November 19, 2024, it was accurate overall and across key demographic groups.
Popular Vote:
While other media outlets were reporting polls that had the popular vote in a dead heat or favoring Harris narrowly, we accurately reported the popular vote favoring Trump by the exact margin. Our survey had Trump winning the popular vote +2, with the count as of November 19, 2024 having Trump up +1.7. While the last published polls by CBS News had Harris +1, NBC News Trump +1, the New York Post Harris +0.9 and the New York Times dead even, the WSJ was ultimately correct in its reporting.
Gender:
A major point of analysis this election cycle has been the gender gap with men favoring President Trump and women Harris. In our October 2024 poll, we had men breaking for President Trump by 11 net-points and women for Harris by 5 net-points, both within 1 point of the final results with both groups. The October 2024 WSJ poll accurately displayed the final gender gap.
Age:
Our poll had Harris winning narrowly among younger voters, with the strongest Trump-voting demographic being voters 45-64, both matching the election day outcome. All three age groups shifted by single digits within the margin of error, but we found a similar pattern for planned vote by age group in our October 2024 poll to the data from VoteCast.
Race:
White voters ended with the exact margin as predicted in the October 2024 poll of +13 for Trump. The October 2024 results for Black and Hispanic voters had greater variance with their net shift because both groups had a higher percentage of undecided voters on the survey and obviously the VoteCast numbers had no undecideds. The fairer comparison is to look at the October 2024 poll support for Trump with these important groups. The WSJ poll had Trump getting 40% of the Hispanic vote and his election day vote was 43%. The WSJ poll also had Trump getting 19% among Black voters and he received 16% on election day. Our poll predicted the rightward shift among both groups when compared to the 2020 election where according to VoteCast, only 8% of Black voters and 35% of Hispanic voters voted for Trump.
Education:
Among voters across educational attainment categories, we were within the margin of error on their final results. Voters with less than a college degree voted for Trump by a 13 point margin, just 1 point off from our poll, while voters with a college degree or higher voted for Harris by a 13 point margin, 5 points from our benchmark. We accurately assessed the gap in educational attainment.
BOTTOM LINE: The October 2024 poll conducted by Fabrizio Lee & Associates and GBAO Strategies on behalf of the Wall Street Journal was the most accurate poll conducted by any of the major media organizations in the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign.