As a followup to my [first post about why I'm confident Harris will outperform polls](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1g0ihi5/rpolitics_2024_us_elections_live_thread_part_36/lr9ybg4/), the second reason I believe Harris is being underestimated in polling is because of the gap between polling and campaign resource management. Essentially, polls capture public *sentiment*, while campaign resource management is focused on *turnout*. 

**1. Most good polls distinguish between registered voters and likely voters.** This is because they understand that public sentiment could be different between voters who are capable of voting and those who actually will vote by election day. Voter turnout is one of the most decisive elements of election results that is often overlooked or underappreciated versus metrics like polls. 

**2. Historically both campaigns do their best to get out their voters.** The modern way to run a campaign is persuasion (media interviews, rallies, debates, TV ads) mixed with coordinated campaign efforts to knock on doors, call/text known supporters, and essentially do everything you can to get your core voters to a voting booth. This was particularly important for Democrats for most of the 20th century, as a core part of their voting block were typically younger, poorer, less educated, and less likely to vote. Republicans typically performed better with older, educated, and middle class voters who tended to vote more regularly. 

**3. Trump doesn't have professional ground game in place for 2024.** Trump, unusually, has never focused much on get out the voter efforts. His persuasion imprint via media networks is so atypically strong he has been able to generate enthusiasm and drive less likely voters to the polls in both 2016 and 2020. In the single election he won, 2016, he also benefited from more typical GOP operatives running those operations for him while he focused on media persuasion. 2020 essentially had a hacked together get out the vote ops from both parties, but still essentially was run by professional GOP campaign managers. Before the 2024 campaign Trump essentially gutted the RNC, placing his own people in place, and is running the campaign with his own internal team... and [they have no idea what they are doing.](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/politics/trump-campaign-ground-game/index.html). 

**4. The Harris campaign is running the best ground operation since Obama 2008.** Kamala's campaign, largely inherited from the Biden machine, is outpacing Trump's [in nearly every metric.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/05/harris-trump-campaign-spending/) She's outspending him nearly 2-1, has more staff, more volunteers, a larger surrogate operation, more digital advertising, and more cash on hand for last minute pivots. And, most importantly, she is dead focused on the seven battle ground states that matter (PA, MI, WI, GA, AZ, NV, NC), not repeating one of the biggest mistakes Hillary made in 2016. 

**5. 2024 turnout is more likely to advantage Harris than Trump.** For all these reasons, Harris is likely to have a turnout advantage that is not fully captured in a polling system largely focused on candidate sentiment. Harris is more likely to get her voters - women, educated, and younger voters - to the polls. Trump would need to over perform his current polling with unlikely voters for the third straight time, but without the ground game he took advantage of in 2016 or the neither-team-has-a-ground-game situation he also benefited from in 2020 that is unlikely to be replicated in 2024.