July 17, 2022
When they work, poll’s are a great way to get the pulse of a group of people – or a whole population. When they don’t work, you get garbage.
Right now, polls probably aren’t working – well, yet. There are two ways to know if a poll is really measuring what its supposed to measure. The first is to get a much bigger poll – we call them elections. The second is to match them up against other indicators and see how well they agree.
The last several election cycles have be ridiculously far off the mark of the majority of polling. The one oddball that gets it right is just an outlier – maybe it was genius and maybe it was dumb luck but since we can’t be sure, we ignore them for the most part. The majority of late polling (these are the ones that should match the election fairly well) has been just wrong. Missed it by something outside the margin of error means it’s just wrong – close doesn’t count when professionals are missing the mark. There’s something wrong in the polling – that’s really all there is to it.
The media forgets that other indicators besides polls exist. Polls are cheap and easy – compared to actual research anyway. But other indicators do exist. Surveying lawn signs – yes, this really is a thing – can be a good way to get an idea of how much support a candidate has in an area (state and local races especially). Better still is looking at the small donations. People of lesser means don’t hedge their bets as the wealthy do – they only contribute to the guy or gal they intend to vote for. This is much more telling than all but the best, full sized polls. And what it tells us is that the polls were just as bad as we thought they were.
No doubt you’ve heard that a recent Gallup poll shows the Republicans now have more people identifying as Republican than Democrats do as Democrat. This is huge – but the polling would have us believe that it’s also sudden. It’s not. What’s most likely changed is the willingness of people who were already siding with Republicans but unwilling to identify as Republicans to begin publicly identifying as Republicans.
So, why do I place any confidence in the polls showing this change? In a word, Gallup. Don’t get me wrong, Gallup is run by human beings with all the normal human foibles and they can most certainly screw up. BUT Gallup also has a reputation to uphold and a track record of professionalism. I’ve seen Gallup get things really wrong over the years – but very seldom. They are still old school enough to have pulled out of the presidential polling leading into the 2020 election – for very valid reasons. All polls should be taken with a grain of salt – but Gallup has proven itself to me enough times that I don’t take as large a grain. More importantly, their results match up with other indicators.
So, why is Gallup getting these results now?
There are several reasons why people vote for Party X but identify as a member of Party Y. Tradition – I’ve always been a Y. Embarrassment – Oh, of course I’m a Y just like everyone else. Fear – I’m a Y! Don’t fire me for being an X! Or just plain contrariness – I’m a Y (heh, heh, dumb pollster!). Whether it’s because they want to have a peaceful Thanksgiving without starting a fight or because they just feel like being a jerk, people lie to pollsters.
Shocker, right?
But they don’t lie (at least not very often) when they are writing their checks to a campaign or when they are alone in the voting booth. They probably won’t stick up a yard sign – but they may have a bumper sticker about an issue that only Party X supports.
Seriously, if you live in California or New York, do you admit to voting Republican? Now? With all the crazies in the streets? Yeah, me neither. A pollster who reaches me while I’m freezing outside trying to eat a meal and stay a mile away from other people is extremely unlikely to get me to respond at all – and if I do take the survey, what are the chances I’ll admit to being Republican while in public? If I’m someplace completely insane like Portland, I probably don’t admit it to myself, let alone some stranger on the phone.
That is until I’m totally feed up and PO’d – and that is likely what we’re seeing now. The Democrats have batted a thousand – unfortunately, they were breaking windows, not records. The Democrats probably weren’t as strong as was assumed going into the 2020 election (I’ll get into that another time) but whatever they did have going for them, it’s up and gone now. Media cheerleading aside, the Democrats have managed the near impossible – they have zero issues that people support them on right now.
People have had their lives mangled and are watching things get worse – they have no patience left for Democrat insanity. Issues that affect most people – like inflation and the incessant C19 hype – now far overshadow any concerns about racism. Indeed, the public is increasingly weary of that drum being beaten as well – and it was the only drum the Democrats knew how to play. Most people are ANGRY – and the Democrats are feeling the brunt of that anger.
Angry people don’t care what the pollster thinks. They don’t care that they have always been Democrats. They don’t care about being contrary. If they are angry enough, they won’t even care about being afraid.
They start answering polls truthfully – and we see a major shift in party identification. Closet Republicans are becoming In Your Face Republicans.
I believe that this is a party system shift in action. We’re probably seeing the beginning of the end of the modern Democratic Party. This shift started a while back – the polls are just now catching up.
September 6, 2022
That was, obviously, two months ago. Lots has happened and actually, not much has. We’re now in the final stretch where polls start to matter. So, have I changed my mind?
No, not really. The money is still going toward the Republicans and Joe Biden seems determined to keep helping them. His atrocious ‘red sermon’ speech looks designed to alienate every thinking human being on the planet. It’s like he’s trying to lose the midterms.
I dunno, maybe he is. President hasn’t worked out well for him so maybe he’s trying to get himself booted by his own party? I really doubt it as that would make no sense. But then I look at those horrid pictures with the Nazi-esque backdrop and I’m not so sure.
I’ve seen poll analysis that projects rather more modest Republican gains for the midterms. Used to, forty seats was not a ‘modest gain’, it was a massacre. Not anymore, the Democrats are hoping that’s all they lose. Will it be?
I still doubt it in the extreme. The Democrats are acting like terrified rabbits. Nothing they’ve done in the last couple months has indicated anything but rank desperation. They’re probably seeing the district polling and that’s going to be frightening if it’s even half as bad as I suspect. Given the Mar-a-largo blunder and the little nazi speech, I may be underestimating how spooked they are. The Democrats are not acting like a party that expects to win or even to survive.
So, sure, it could end up with ‘only’ a forty seat turnover. I’m dubious that ‘win’ would save the Democrat Party. Might keep it on life support a while longer but that party appears to me to be on its way out.
The interesting thing will be to see how well the polling predicts the reality.
Image by Jens P. Raak from Pixabay
