Plouffe: "With black men, obviously, Trump is, in some polls, going to do better than he did in '20. We don't deny that there's going to be a fight there. But what matters is can we get to the number we need? when you put all the different voting cohorts in the bushel together. So we feel like we've got a pathway to do that for sure.

Again, I would note mathematically, when you're struggling that much with women voters [as Trump is] in battleground states, it puts a lot of pressure on Trump, not just to do better with some of these other cohorts, but to do better than he's doing now.

And we don't see that."

From Impolitic with John Heilemann: David Plouffe: “I’d (Still) Rather Be Us Than Them”, Oct 21, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann/id1529346075?i=1000673857816&r=1413
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Q. “So do you see any signs of erosion of Harris' standing in the Blue Wall states? And I mean, we hear from people from the world of Alyssa Slotkin, from the world of Gretchen Whitmer, from the world of Tammy Baldwin, in the press and otherwise, that Kamala Harris' position is weakening. Not a lot, not like the floor is collapsing underneath her, but that the race is tightening. So do you see that?

Plouffe: "No, and again, I can only speak to our own data, which obviously is something only some of us in the campaign have visibility and two can't share that specifically.

“But what we've seen in those blue wall states is Trump had a big lead. We kept cutting into it. Some of that was he's came down, a lot of it was we were going up.

We think this race has basically been 48, 48, 48, 47 in those states for some time. Again, when we look underneath the hood, because what matters is 100 percent of the vote being allocated. So when you say, okay, how are those undecided voters likely to break?

Who's got an advantage on turnout in terms of various turnout scenarios? We like our position more than Trump, but...listen, I've also heard this week there's some polling in some of those states, not us, that Senate races that have us with a larger lead than we have ourselves.

So we kind of have to tune that out and just go by our own data, which again, I think in a campaign, no data is flawless, but it's based on many sources."

From Impolitic with John Heilemann: David Plouffe: “I’d (Still) Rather Be Us Than Them”, Oct 21, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann/id1529346075?i=1000673857816&r=1144
This material may be protected by copyright.

Q. So let me ask you just two very direct, straightforward questions that you can answer with a yes or no...

One is [the view] that there is some momentum towards Trump. Does your data in the seven battleground states show any sign that Trump has momentum...Does the Trump campaign have any of that in any of the seven battleground states?

Plouffe: "No.

Let me add, what I think is happening publicly is, while there were more polls than were reality, showing Kamala Harris with an outsized lead, generally, they were based on, you know, Trump was down at like 43, 44, 45. He's going to get 47, 48% of the vote....We really didn't see that, you know, I think we gained, we think in our own data, about a point after the debate, maybe a little more than that. But again, we were on this, this climb from a huge deficit....

Like, so when everyone is excited about the vibes and the great convention and those were all great, we were still staring at a pretty significant deficit that, you know, we needed to erase and we've done that.

But no, we see no sign of Trump momentum.”

From Impolitic with John Heilemann: David Plouffe: “I’d (Still) Rather Be Us Than Them”, Oct 21, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann/id1529346075?i=1000673857816&r=975
This material may be protected by copyright.

Plouffe: "This race is just dead even....And then basically we've been tied for some time.

And here's why I'm still confident, cautiously confident. I still think we have a higher ceiling meaning: Which of these candidates is likely to get 49 and a half or 50 percent of the vote in more states? I think we still have a slightly higher ceiling. Number one.

Number two, I think Trump is more reliant on first-time voters, irregular voters and the early voting data we're seeing so far, there's no suggestion that they are turning out a bunch of irregular voters. In fact, I think in every battleground, we've got more irregular voters than he does.

That's important...[new irregular voters for Trump at scale] they're not showing up. Maybe they'll show up on election day, but so far there is no sign that they are marauding early vote locations. So I think I'd rather be us than them.

I think Trump is probably closer to a ceiling than we are, but this is very close.

And I think part of what I wanted to do in some of these interviews is just to be honest about that, number one, and also number two, to be clear that to the extent that Democrats thought we were sailing to a victory here, one, that's not the case. And two, it never was...

But I think what it all adds up to is this is going to be an exceedingly close race in seven states.”

From Impolitic with John Heilemann: David Plouffe: “I’d (Still) Rather Be Us Than Them”, Oct 21, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann/id1529346075?i=1000673857816&r=881

Q. “Does [rankings in 538 or other voting trend aggregators] matter to you? Do you pay any attention to that?"

Plouffe: "Well, I don't because, and again, we in our campaign and the Trump campaign can say the same, we have our own data, no one else has that, right? So just like a consumer company is making decisions about customer retention and acquisition based on their own data, that's what we're doing and so that's our window into the race, which has been really close really since mid-September."

Q. Would you tell, just would you say to Democrats, in addition to don't pay attention to a poll or Kamala Harris is up by four or that Donald Trump is up by four, would you say, please stop paying attention to Nate Silver?

Plouffe: "Well, I don't think it's going to be much value. Nate would be the first person to tell you that if he has somebody in their model of 51 percent, that means 49 percent of the times they lose the race. So number one.

Number two, a model is still based on public polls. And while they try to grade the ones and weight the ones that are better historically than not, it's still based on that.

And I think there's no doubt that there was a period of time post-debate, we saw public polls that had us with a lead we didn't see ourselves. And I think that was probably because Democrats were more enthusiastic for a while about answering surveys. And we also were very conservative in our internal data.

...[On] Nate Silver's model, 538 model, my guess is between now and then, there'll be some days we're up, some days we're down, but all that means is it's a dead heat race....

This race is just dead even. And listen, you know, I think the Trump campaign would admit that too, and you can tell based on their activity and what they're saying that they see that too. So it's a fascinating race in that Trump had a big lead in August, we were able to errase that lead...."

From Impolitic with John Heilemann: David Plouffe: “I’d (Still) Rather Be Us Than Them”, Oct 21, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann/id1529346075?i=1000673857816&r=793