STOP Trusting Polls

Independence Day is in the rear-view mirror. Labor Day looms, and with it, the final laps of this Presidential marathon.

Biden leads nationally by eight percentage points. Biden and Trump are tied in Wisconsin. Biden widens gap in crucial Pennsylvania. Biden ten points up in Texas. Every day the pollsters report more and more support for Biden. Do not believe a word of it.

Four years ago, as I bicycled the byroads of America, every poll indicated that Hillary Clinton would be elected our President. Right up until she wasn’t. The day after the election, Trump signs bloomed like dandelions on previously apolitical lawns.

What went wrong? The basic assumptions of American electoral politics, that’s all.

Consider the representative Trump supporter, circa 2016. All in for the guy who was going to Lock Her Up and Drain the Swamp. What do you tell a pollster who calls you on the phone, or pops up on your Internet feed? The most disruptive response you can conjure: “Hillary Clinton.” There was no upside in revealing the election booth truth, that you will pull the Donald’s lever. Much more effective to feed the media’s story line that Trump is a barely credible candidate, even as the media’s fixation on the man made him credible by dominantly covering him.