New poll: You’ll be shocked how many people expect a landslide election

Most voters are bracing for a close election and expect not to know the winner until after Election Day, according to new polling from Civiqs for Daily Kos. And yet over a fourth think the election will be a landslide, and a third expect to find out the results on Election Day.

In the mid-October survey, 61% of registered voters expect that the election will be close. This expectation is attuned to the state of the race, where national and swing-state polls find Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump locked in a tight race and their leads often within the margin of error.

However, 28% of voters expect one candidate to win in a “landslide,” defined as a result in which “one candidate will win by a lot.” It’s unclear whether voters are imagining a victory like Barack Obama’s in 2008—where he won 365 electoral votes—or like Ronald Reagan’s in 1984—where he won the entire map, excluding Minnesota and Washington, D.C. 

Expectations of a landslide are higher among Republican voters (38%) than Democrats (25%) or independents (22%). Older voters also are less likely to think that the election will be close: Less than a fifth of voters ages 18 to 34 (18%) think it’ll be a landslide, while over a third of those ages 50 to 64 (37%) think so.

Regardless, expectations of a landslide suggest many voters are either not aware of the race’s tight polling or believe the polling is wrong.