Latest Polls Seem To Understate Trump’s Chances

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Recent polls showing Vice President Biden or even Senator Sanders defeating President Trump in a general election are understating Mr. Trump’s true strength.

An Emerson College poll released April 15 had Mr. Biden beating Mr. Trump 53% to 47%, and Mr. Sanders beating Mr. Trump, 51% to 48%. A Morning Consult Politico poll released April 24 had the ex-vice president at 42% and Mr. Trump at 34%. A Hill HarrisX survey released April 26 had Vice President Biden at 43% and President Trump at 37%.

These polls are misleading in at least six ways.

First, the presidency is decided on the basis of the electoral vote, not a nationwide popular vote. Mr. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and won the presidency anyway, because of the way his votes were distributed in the various states. It’d be risky for Mr. Trump to count on a repeat of that feat, which is unusual but not unprecedented. In any event, polls of battleground states, or swing states, can be more useful predictors than nationwide surveys.

Second, these head-to-head polls, unlike battleground state ballots, don’t include third party or minor party candidates. Such general-election efforts by candidates such as Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, and Ross Perot all were arguably significant factors in tight presidential elections in recent years. Starbucks coffee entrepreneur Howard Schultz has the money to be a factor this time around, though his campaign so far has been less than impressive.

Third, as “Little Marco” Rubio and “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz can attest, Mr. Trump has considerable skill at defining an opposing candidate memorably and early. Senator Warren is still trying to recover from Mr. Trump’s description of her as Pocahontas, or Fauxcahontas, and Mr. Trump has even publicly regretted not saving it for later, maybe after she won the Democratic nomination.

This week, after the polls were taken, Mr. Trump was tweeting about “Sleepy Joe” Biden. He’s also testing “Crazy Bernie Sanders.” Expect to hear more such nicknames, or insults, between now and Election Day.

Fourth, Mr. Trump’s own negative campaigning will be, well before the time the actual election rolls around, supplemented by independent expenditures that emphasize the worst aspects of his opponent.

Remember the way Swift Boat Veterans For Truth took Senator Kerry’s Vietnam War experience and turned it into a negative in the minds of some voters, or at least raised doubts about his own portrayal of that experience? Look forward to what the Trump campaign’s allies do with Mr. Biden’s “handsy” reputation or with his record as an opponent of federal intervention in integration cases involving school busing.

Fifth, as the cumulative experience of polling Brexit, the 2016 Trump campaign, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2019 election victory demonstrate, nationalists or conservatives or populists or whatever you want to call them tend not to be terribly eager to cooperate with pollsters. The pollsters tend to work for either universities or the elite press that the nationalists or conservatives or populists or whatever you want to call them view, with at least some justification, as irredeemably biased against them.

The pollsters can try to use technical methods such as oversampling or weighting to correct for this sort of thing, but at bottom, if a Trump voter wants to tell a pollster over the telephone that he is actually a die-hard Elizabeth Warren fan, there’s not much the pollster can do to avoid being misled.

Sixth, these races are susceptible to last-minute, event-based swings — the financial crisis in 2008, the James Comey statements about Hillary Clinton in 2016 — that are impossible to predict this far in advance. These swings could work in favor of President Trump or against him. It’s hard, though, to imagine Mr. Trump getting worse press coverage than he already has, so late surprises could well hurt his Democratic challenger.

Given all of that, why pay any attention at all at this stage? It’s a reasonable question. The colleges and news organizations are investing money in these polls in part on the basis that we readers are curious enough to click through. For better or worse, we all get the journalism, and the politicians, that we deserve.


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use