Trump's secret edge — and the one factor polls kept missing in 2024

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York, U.S., May 22, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

When President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, much of the political world was shocked — but a new study reveals one forecasting framework that anticipated that outcome.

“Many voters rely on prospective voting, a process of evaluating candidates based on anticipated future performance,” wrote PsyPost's Karina Petrova on Monday. “Researchers have found that these forward-looking assessments become a primary driver of voter behavior in open-seat contests. Voters look ahead at what policies and leadership styles the new candidates might bring to the office.”

In a study led by Macromedia University of Applied Sciences researcher Andreas Graefe, the scientists created a so-called “Issues and Leaders model” to figure out why voters make the choices they do rather than simply profiling their support for different candidates at specific points in time.

“The Issues and Leaders model focuses entirely on two variables: issue-handling competence and leadership perception,” Petrova explained. “To calculate issue-handling scores, the model requires three conditions to be met. Voters must be aware of an issue, they must perceive it as important, and they must trust one candidate more than the other to manage it.”

The study revealed that near the end of the 2024 election between Harris and Trump, the Democrat actually had a slight advantage over Trump when it came to perceptions of her overall competence, even though she initially trailed Trump by 20 points in July (when she first entered the campaign).

“The final forecast generated by the model on Election Eve predicted a near tie, with Trump receiving 50.2 percent of the two-party popular vote and Harris receiving 49.8 percent,” Petrova wrote. “This cautious projection stood in contrast to many conventional polling averages, which generally showed Harris retaining a slight lead. Ultimately, Trump won the national popular vote by approximately 1.5 percentage points.”

In short, it seems that Harris was able to close the gap between herself and Trump, but simply did not have enough time to do so fully.

In the paper, which was published in the scholarly journal Research and Politics, argued that its conclusions can be used to anticipate future election results.

“A particularly notable insight is the role of leadership perception in forecasting Trump’s narrow victory,” Graefe wrote. “While Harris held a modest edge on issue competence, Trump maintained a consistent lead in leadership perception—a factor that gained predictive weight closer to the election. The model anticipated Trump’s advantage before most polling averages reflected it, highlighting its potential to signal electoral dynamics that might otherwise be overlooked.”

Graefe added, “Beyond forecasting accuracy, the model offers practical value by providing a real-time lens into campaign dynamics. By emphasizing prospective voting, it helps identify evolving voter priorities and candidate strengths. This makes it a potentially useful tool not just for forecasters, but also for campaign strategists, journalists, and political observers.”

Earlier on Monday, The Guardian reported that the coalition which elected Trump is starting to fray. Citing numbers from the 2024 election, it pointed out that "Trump won 66 percent of white voters without a college degree." Today, though, it found via a CBS News poll that "54 percent of that demographic disapprove of his performance. That was up from 45 percent disapproval in February (before Trump began bombing Iran) and up sharply from 32 percent in February 2025."

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