Find the fans
Dan Pfeiffer’s newsletter takes up the case. He gives all the reasons outlined by Nate Cohn about the possibility of a big polling error this time that could leave the Democrats in the dust, which has everyone quaking in their boots now. But there’s more:
While polls may or may not be wrong in certain places, there is plenty of evidence for Democratic resurgence and an improved political environment. First, you can ignore the polls and look at the results in special elections where Democrats consistently outpace their 2020 performance. Second, while inflation is still high, gas prices have been dropping steadily for months. Finally, and most importantly, sometimes it makes sense to ditch the calculator and use your common sense. It’s obvious and apparent the Dobbs decision energized millions and millions of voters.
It’s also worth noting that the polls were much more accurate in 2018 — including in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Trump was on the ballot in 2016 and 2020 and not in 2018. So, there may be something about the voters who turn out for Trump. Without Trump, the polling inaccuracies may be absent in this election. Nate Silver makes a compelling argument against polls being inherently pro-Democratic.
People’s concerns about the polls stem mostly from a sample of exactly two elections, 2020 and 2016. You can point out that polls also had a Democratic bias in 2014. But, of course, they had a Republican bias in 2012, were largely unbiased in 2018, and have either tended to be unbiased or had a Republican bias in recent special elections.
True, in 2020 and 2016, polls were off the mark in a large number of races and states. But the whole notion of a systematic polling error is that it’s, well, systematic: It affects nearly all races, or at least the large majority of them. There just isn’t a meaningful sample size to work with here, or anything close to it
The truth is no one knows, but the results in this upcoming election will tell us a lot about if the last two presidential elections were polling flukes or if polling now is beyond repair. If it’s the former, we can go back to a healthy skepticism of polls. If it’s the latter, the art and science of politics is in for a massive overhaul.
2016 and 2020 were major polling errors. The other misses in recent years were more in line with historical expectations. I think we know what was different in those two years, don’t we? It was Donald Trump. He attracts a type of voter that doesn’t respond to polls and goes unmeasured. And apparently, these voters are only interested in him personally, not the Republican party, not the Republican project.
I think I’ve seen those voters before: Arnold Schwarzenegger voters. I remember standing in line to vote (back before we had mail-in voting in California) and the line was super long, full of odd voters. It was like waiting in line for a rock concert. I’d never seen anything like it. People were dressed funny, they were doing all of Arnold’s lines from his movies (“I’ll be back” etc.) and basically having a party. They weren’t voters, they were fans. It wasn’t about politics at all.
Those are the people who aren’t being polled and who vote because Trump is on the ballot. If they can find those people (or adjust for them) the polls will be more accurate.