Posted on 08/23/2016 11:25:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
Are the presidential polls a true measure of the electorate’s decision or are they a never ending measurement of odds?
A few months ago Donald Trump had a lead on Hillary Clinton. Then after a series of the Donald’s misstatements, his questionable actions, Hillary’s advertising barrage and Trump’s hierarchy reshuffling, the roles reversed in the polls. It all sounded like the track announcer calling the seventh race at Aqueduct. “Annnnd it’s Hillary surging to the lead, with a quarter mile to go.”
As the pollster’s numbers changed I was left with a series of unanswered questions. I hear from the many experienced political veterans, on both sides of the aisle, that polls do matter. They tell us that campaign strategies ebb and flow as the numbers move up and down.
Where I get confused is IF this is the most polarizing presidential election in history (with apologies to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas-remember that little thing called the Civil War?) who has not already made up their mind as to who they will vote for? Of the hundreds of eligible voters who I have talked to across these United States not one is undecided. Passions and emotions run high but uncertainty is not one of them. Included in my poll are those have decided not to vote. Many are disgusted with both candidates. Others believe the system is rigged so why bother. Still others could care less. These folks may get a last minute twinge of conscience upon reflecting the sacrifice many made so they could have the freedom to vote. I greatly doubt that any of them will go to the polls. However pushed to the wall I am sure they have a favorite of one over the other. Even they are decided.
So why, I ask, do the polls go up and down if everyone has already decided?
Many times it is the way a series of questions are asked leaving the pollster to make an assumption of what the respondent meant. Often the demographics are skewed to the bias of the pollster. The old story about 2+2 seems to be appropriate. When the government official was asked what 2+2 equaled he responded by saying “what do you need it to be?”
Biased pollsters are a fact of life. Each one knows who he or she wants as president and is not above producing the data that will help their candidate. This is, after all, not an election for local dog catcher but for the most powerful office in the world. Therefore it’s no holds bar, anything goes and biased pollsters are a fact of life.
Perhaps taking equal parts of Democrat/Republican, young/middle age/old, rich/poor, black/white/red/yellow, and going back to them week after week to see if any advertising monies spent, speeches made or new revelations gleaned has made them change their mind about their candidate, would be a more appropriate and honest poll.
I am quite certain that none would be convinced to change horses. Everyone knows exactly who they will vote for this November regardless of what the so called pundits have to say.
Everything else is simply a sideshow for the folks on MSNBC, FOX, CNN, CBS and others to fill airtime.
The election has already been decided. It’s now just waiting for the horses to cross the finish line and the track announcer to declare “the winner is.”
Every one is trying to drag Hillary across the finish line.
With all her baggage, that’s still possible.
I get the author’s intent here but I do think the real question is not how the horses are running, but how many horses will become interested enough to get out of the barn.
All the polls may indeed be biased (I think they are) and may not be meaningful at this point but at the same time, the final event will be decided by the turnout. I am pulling for Trump to turnout a much larger segment of the population than have ever participated before.
He did this in the primaries and I do not see how the general electorate is very different. They too should be attracted to his message.
The really grim thought is that supposedly the dumbest of the undecided/swing voters are the ones that actually decide all national elections. No matter the result. It could be won by a con, dem, pub or lib but the same 10% of voters decided it based on non-rational reasons that happened to sway them one way or the other, possibly at the last second. It could be the physical appearance of a candidate, the perceived popularity of a candidate, who ‘won’ a debate based on what talking heads on TV say about it or a candidates mastery of debate technique.
Freegards
Trump needs to start spending $money in Ohio, PA, NC, Virginia, and Florida.
Spend it on negative ads reminding people of Hillary’s negatives and her past.
I have not always supported Trump, but I always thought his best attribute is he wasn’t afraid to go after his opponents.
So far, I think he’s been playing it soft on Hillary. He needs to start attacking her and the Democrats.
Before it is too late.
Trump knows political ads have no real value.
Hillary spent a ton of money on them with no real rate of return.
There are other ways to get out your message.
The author needs to sit though some basic Political Science classes and actually read a bit about what polls are (and are not), how they are conducted and how they are used. Perhaps the most content free article I have read in the last few years.
He also needs to read some history. Hard to take anyone seriously who writes that Lincoln-Douglas was a presidential race.
Lincoln and Douglas opposed each other in 1858 for the Senate race in Illinois (which was ultimately decided by which party controlled the legislature), but in 1860 they opposed each other for President (Stephen Douglas was the nominee of the northern Democrats) along with two other candidates.
Or opines that this race is (or that 1860 was) particularly brutal. Some of the fainting flowers of both parties would be shocked by what went on a bit under 200 years ago. I told one fellow ‘get back to me when cabinet members start dueling to the death with VPs’ WRT how “uncivil” things are now :-) I think all but the most hardened operatives of both Democratic and Republican parties would have the vapors if they had to play 1820’s style :-). Trump would be as at home with the ‘Know Nothings” as Hillary would be in Tammany Hall.
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