STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We are hearing many voices from both parties and beyond about what happened last night, and one of them is Margie Omero with the public opinion firm GBAO. She's a long-time strategist for Democrats and a frequent guest here. Welcome back.
MARGIE OMERO: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
INSKEEP: And thanks for joining us so early. Where are you looking to understand what happened?
OMERO: Well, first, we should just caution as we look through what happened. We're relying on exit polls. There'll be a lot more. Those are polls just like any other polls.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
OMERO: There'll be a lot more analysis looking at actual...
INSKEEP: Not necessarily the most reliable.
OMERO: ...All the votes as they come in.
INSKEEP: Good point. But go on.
OMERO: Yes. So just keeping all that in mind. But a couple of things that I think are pretty interesting. First is the late, you know, late deciders and people who didn't vote in previous elections. If you look at people who said, I didn't vote in the past election, those voters went to Trump this time around. In 2020, the folks who said in that election that they didn't vote the previous time in 2016, those people actually voted more for - broke more for Biden. So there's a difference in those new voters that came into the electorate. The other thing I would look at is the gender gap among Latinos.
A lot of folks have been talking about that overnight. It has grown from 2020, the difference between Latino men and their support for Trump and Latino women and their support for Trump. There's a gender gap, of course, across the board 'cause women are generally more Democratic. But that's going to vary from state to state. So that's something to take a look at, too. In Nevada, there has been a consistent gender gap. It's quite a bit larger than in Arizona, where that gender gap is actually a little bit smaller than it was in 2020.
INSKEEP: You know, the polling averages tended to show Vice President Harris with the tiniest, tiniest lead at the end. From what you're telling me, it sounds like it's possible the polls had it roughly right, and then the late deciders put it over decisively to Trump. Is that what...
OMERO: Right.
INSKEEP: ...It feels like to you?
OMERO: Yeah. I mean, look, you have late deciders. You have, you know, folks who are new to the electorate who are a little bit harder and different to reach. And ultimately, when we look at polling averages, polls have a margin of error. And I know that the race looks decisive today as people are waking up and looking at what's happened in the electoral college. But all the battleground states were ultimately within...
INSKEEP: Very close.
OMERO: ...A few points. And even though that's winner take all, and, you know, that may seem decisive, ultimately, these are not different from a margin of error tied result that we had been seeing all fall. I mean, the other thing, too, Steve - and there's been a lot on this - is there have been a lot of efforts to look at what moves the race and a lot of conversations. Every time I talk to folks, well, is this going to change things? Is this going to change things? We didn't see much...
INSKEEP: No.
OMERO: ...Move the race. Every poll we did where we try different types of messaging, public polling, focus groups, there were not that - there wasn't that much that seemed to move the race. And so it's consistent with a kind of locked-in tied race that ultimately those close races, it - margin of error all broke the same way toward Trump and now leading to where he is today.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Margie, it's Michel Martin. A question - if Harris had been able to get into the race sooner, do you think it would have made a difference? Is there any way to assess that?
OMERO: That's really impossible to know. I think what was interesting for the way - if you look at what the candidates do on television, which can really tell you about what they're trying to say, what they think is important to communicate. Harris really did - and Harris and allies - a lot of positive communication. And that's, you know, that's something that I think people say they want more of. But, in fact, in this case, you know, a much larger share of what her communication was about was positive. That was not true for Trump. What he was communicating was almost exclusively negative. So she was really introducing herself to voters. It's impossible to ask people, you know, that kind of hypothetical or to be able to, you know, look at a poll and come to the answer of that.
INSKEEP: But I just got to note. You mentioned that Trump was much darker. That's the way that our correspondents described it, saying that Democrats were demonic, the rally at Madison Square Garden, on and on in the last couple of weeks of the campaign, and that is the very time when you're telling us that late deciders seem to have broken for Trump. Either it made no difference, or it appealed to people.
OMERO: I mean, I think, you know, he has a - he's very well-defined, right? He's well-defined by these things. And there's some voters who like him because of the way he speaks, and there's some voters who like him despite it. There are certainly people who are unfavorable toward him, who tell us in focus groups, look, I don't like the guy. I wish he would do X, Y and Z things he has shown - and this is my parenthetical - no, you know, inclination to do. But that's what they want from him.
INSKEEP: And they...
OMERO: But they're with him anyway.
INSKEEP: Yeah. Margie Omero, Democratic pollster. Thanks so much for your time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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