Between the July assassination attempt on Donald Trump, President Biden dropping out of the race and Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic nominee, this past summer was unlike any other period in the 2024 presidential race. But the faculty, staff, and student fellows of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES) have been quick to adjust.

At the same time, they continue to contend with shifts in the field of public opinion research that preceded this summer, and they continue with their own research. William Marble, for example, has been studying the reasons for the educational realignment of white voters during the past 40 years. He has posted a paper to the SocArXiv preprint server.

Marble, director of data science at PORES and a consultant for the NBC News Decision Desk, talked to Penn Today about how PORES has adjusted to changes over the summer, the rapidly changing field of public opinion research, and his desire for voters and news media to not only focus on horse race coverage but also polling on issues.

There's been a lot of change in the 2024 presidential race. How did that impact the staff of PORES and the work you're doing?

We have been closely monitoring all these changes. I have been closely tracking movements in polling, and this isn't just to try to predict who will win but also to understand broader political phenomena and understand which issues are important to voters.

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