The Pollster Who Thinks Trump Is Ahead. The upstart Trafalgar Group doesn’t see 2020 the same way everyone else does.

National Review ^ | October 18, 2020 | Rich Lowry

[karpov]

The polling aggregator on the website RealClearPolitic shows the margin in polls led by Joe Biden in a blue font and the ones led by Donald Trump in red. For a while, the battleground states have tended to be uniformly blue, except for polls conducted by the Trafalgar Group.

If you are a firm believer only in polling averages, this isn’t particularly meaningful, but if you are familiar with Trafalgar’s successes in 2016, when (unlike other pollsters) it had Trump leading in Michigan and Pennsylvania and, in 2018, Ron DeSantis winning his gubernatorial race, it is notable. Regardless, it’s worth knowing why one pollster is departing from nearly everyone else.

To this end, I checked in with Robert Cahaly, who is predicting a Trump victory, on the latest edition of The Editors podcast. This piece is based on our conversation.

Cahaly was born in Georgia and got involved in politics going door-to-door as a kid. He started a political-consulting firm with some others in the late 1990s. Around 2008, he says, they realized that the polling they were getting wasn’t very good, so they started doing their own. He says they got good, accurate results in the races they were working.

In the 2016 primaries, they started putting out some of their own polls. “Our polls ended up being the best ones in South Carolina and Georgia,” Cahaly says. “So we started studying what it was that made those so different.”

Then there was the breakthrough in the 2016 general election. “We ended up having an incredible year,” he says. “I mean, we got Pennsylvania right. We got Michigan right. We had the best poll in five of the battleground states in 2016. And I actually predicted 306 to 232 on the electoral college.

[fireman15]

The other side has no enthusiasm for their candidate. They have been sending out waffling and confusing signals to their voters. They wanted them to vote by mail... now they want them to show up at polling places. When people do not know what they are expected to do, they tend to do nothing. There are all sorts of indications that the enthusiasm for President Trump this time around is greater than it was in 2016. And President Trump is doing 2 to 3 well attended rallies a day. Despite my proclivity toward grinding my teeth at night and worrying... I sense a landslide coming because of the the difference in enthusiasm levels. This will cause our side to make gains in both houses of congress as well.

[castowell]

Rich seems to be miffed about the Trafalgar Group.

[lewislynn]

The upstart Trafalgar Group doesn’t see 2020 the same way everyone else does

Who is "everyone else" exactly?

National Review... Rich Lowry
Never Trumpers to the core.

[Olog-hai]

Fraudulent mail-in votes are being rejected by the hundreds of thousands even in blue states (actually fraudulent). And there’s the recent big spike in fear on the Democratic side that Republicans could “take advantage” of the mail-in voting system . . .

[bray]

No Repub has led in the last 50 years so take it what it is worth. There is no science in these polls and Trump is leading.

[Steven W.]

I think a good solution for the DEMs is to have their voters head to the polls on November 4 so as to minimize exposure to COVID-19.

[RightGuy]

Lowry just got his braces off and he’s no brighter than a fourteen year old, if that.

[cgbg]

Please view this video and you will understand that the polls are definitely wrong—early voting has turned them into useless antiques—President Trump has _got_ this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf6yr_McIFs&feature=youtu.be

The Democratic insiders already know their cause is lost.

[cgbg]

Lowry is a mental midget.

You nailed it. This article is a pathetic joke.

Early voting has already blown away polling data and proven it to be fraudulent--it Lowrey had legitimate sources within the Trump campaign he would already know this.

President Trump is _nailing_ it in early voting compared to 2016 and of course compared to the insane polls.

[cgbg]

It won’t be close enough for voter fraud to matter—even in PA.

You heard it here first.

[Ted Grant]

It’s hard to imagine that anybody at National Review has any legitmate sources at the administration, you’re right.

[cgbg]

They have been sending out waffling and confusing signals to their voters. They wanted them to vote by mail... now they want them to show up at polling places. When people do not know what they are expected to do, they tend to do nothing.

Almost there.

What has actually happened is that the DNC and the Biden campaign organized voters to vote very early.

"Very early" is now in the rear view mirror--and both we and they now _know_ the Democrats missed their turnout target--by hundreds of thousands of votes in key states.

This is not polling.

This is not guessing.

This is the real numbers--for more details see the video I posted above.

Confronted with that reality, _now_ the Biden campaign has panicked and begged Democratic voters to vote in person.

If you want to understand the current status of the Biden campaign, walk over to the nearest toilet and flush it!

[fireman15]

If you want to understand the current status of the Biden campaign, walk over to the nearest toilet and flush it!

Pretty good assesment! And now to fix it they are all hiding out to avoid questions about Hunter's laptop. This is shaping up to be a huge blow out.

[cgbg]

The mass media clowns are crying “Russia, Russia, Russia”.

Very few of us thought they would be _that_ stupid.

Let us see how long that “party line” lasts and they fall back to the next pack of lies.

The Trump campaign is playing the mass media—forcing them to lie, then contradict themselves with a new lie—then rinse and repeat, over and over, right up until election day.

Some of the remaining (non early voter) Democratic voters will get disgusted—tune out—and many will not bother to show up and vote for Slow corrupt Joe.

[cgbg]

The mass media clowns are crying “Russia, Russia, Russia”.

Very few of us thought they would be _that_ stupid.

Let us see how long that “party line” lasts and they fall back to the next pack of lies.

The Trump campaign is playing the mass media—forcing them to lie, then contradict themselves with a new lie—then rinse and repeat, over and over, right up until election day.

Some of the remaining (non early voter) Democratic voters will get disgusted—tune out—and many will not bother to show up and vote for Slow corrupt Joe.

[Ikemeister]

PA has the most spineless GOP legislative majority in America.

[Impy]

Dude just predicted “Mid 270s” for Trump.

Obviously you take that but some people here have there on mind set on a lot better.

[LS]

He isn’t yet count PA, WI, MN, or NV. He should carry all.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“Dude just predicted “Mid 270s” for Trump.”

__________________

I just listened to the Trafalgar guy being interviewed by National Review’s Rich Lowry on “The Editors” podcast (recorded yesterday (Sunday)), and he said that if the election was held today that Trump would win with EVs in the high 270s or 280s; and if you listen to him going state by state, it seems obvious that he thinks that Trump would break 300. He is confident that Trump will carry NC, FL, AZ and Michigan. He also specified that his most recent poll has Trump down by 2% in PA but that such poll number means that Trump probably will win there (because there are respondents who, from their other answers, he knows will vote for Trump but that won’t say that they’ll vote for Trump because of the “social desirability” phenomenon), but that PA is the one state that he is most afraid could be won by Trump but stolen from him due to vote fraud.

[LS]

Actually Trafalgar’s poll for PA today was 1. something.