Dem
49
GOP
51
It turns out that some people lie to the people around them (presumably including pollsters) about who they voted for/will vote for. Gen Z voters 18-27 are the worst offenders. Nearly half of them lie. Most of them came of age during the Trump era and are sensitive to perceived pressure from people they know. The solution: Just lie about it. Here are the data:
Gen Z voters are the biggest liars, with 48% fibbing, followed by millennials (28-43). Boomers are the most honest. The four cohorts are roughly equal in size. The reasons for lying to friends and family members vary, but toxic polarization is high on the list. Younger voters don't want to get into fights with friends and family members over politics. Boomers have no fear.
A key issue—to which we don't have an answer now—is how many younger voters have lied to pollsters about their presidential pick this year. If they have, the polling error could be more consequential than we think. Younger voters on the whole are more Democratic than older ones, and if they have tried to hide this, there could be a secret vote for Harris, the opposite of the "shy Trump voter" of 2016. But this is just one possibility. On the other hand, young Black men may not want to reveal they support Trump for reasons their family and friends might not approve of, so they might lie to everyone.
Harris' campaign understands the problem of telling your family and friends about how you are going to vote. In particular, it understands that in some (working-class) families, the man thinks he is the boss and can dictate to his wife how she is expected to vote, namely for Donald Trump. The wife may not be on the same page as her husband, but doesn't want him to know that. So the ads emphasize that her vote is secret. They don't exactly say she should hide her ballot from her husband, but they kind of imply that. The problem arises when they show up together at the polling place and go into adjacent voting booths. If they come out at the same time, the husband might insist on seeing his wife's ballot before she puts it in the ballot box. This could require the wife to vote quickly (perhaps only for the top few races), then putting the ballot in the box before the husband emerges from the voting booth, then lying about her vote. As far as we can recall, "lie to your husband" has not been the campaign slogan of any major-party candidate since women got the vote nationwide in the 1920s. (V)