Is it too early for 2024 polls to be predictive?

$%*& yes! But they can tell us about public opinion today.

Dear reader,

You would be forgiven for not knowing there are elections, today, in November of the year of our lord 2023, given our collective early focus on 2024. You’d also be forgiven for that focus on next year; It’s an important contest, with a significant outcome at stake, and since it’s November it’s a suitable time to check in with how the race is starting out.

That’s what I’ve done for ABC News/538 this morning. According to our averages of the early polls, Democrats and Republicans are tied in the popular vote for both the US House of Representatives and the presidency. Democrats are polling at 44% in the generic ballot for the House, while Republicans are at 43%. And Biden and Trump are tied at 42% and 43%, respectively, for the White House.

These averages are more reliable than taking any one poll as gospel, but it’s important to remember that polls can be uniformly biased by several different sources of error and bias. For example, in a poll this weekend from the New York T…