Every week, it seems a new poll is released which shows that failed one-term former president Donald Trump holds a lead over President Joe Biden, a trend which has some Democratic strategists worried the polls may be a harbinger of bad news to come when ballots are cast in November.
But as New York Times analyst Nate Cohn notes in a piece he wrote for the newspaper, a quick look behind the numbers reveals that Trump’s support is much weaker than the raw numbers reveal.
Why? Well, mainly because Trump’s so-called polling advantage is among less engaged voters, who aren’t exactly a good indicator of what will happen when balloting begins.
“President Biden has actually led the last three Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Mr. Trump’s gains have come from these less engaged voters.”
That means Trump’s lead in the polls is illusory at best and could actually be a lead for Biden, Cohn explains.
“While the race has been stable so far, Mr. Trump’s dependence on disengaged voters makes it easy to imagine how it could quickly become more volatile. As voters tune in over the next six months, there’s a chance that disengaged but traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately, many of these disaffected voters might ultimately stay home, which might help Mr. Biden.”
The preponderance of disengaged voters nearly six months out from the election also makes the job of a pollster that much more challenging, Cohn adds.
“While millions of irregular voters will undoubtedly turn out this November, no one knows just how many of them will ultimately show up — let alone exactly which ones will do so,” he writes. “This too is always a challenge for pollsters, but the deep divide between regular and irregular Democrats this cycle means that the polls may be unusually sensitive to the ultimate makeup of the electorate, with Mr. Biden potentially favored if enough of his disengaged defectors stay home.”
Remember 2016? All of the polls showed Hillary Clinton with a commanding lead over Trump. Despite that, she lost.
And in 2020, while many polls showed Joe Biden ahead on Election Day, none of them showed him winning in a popular and electoral vote landslide, which he did.
This will likely be a close election, but the polls probably won’t reflect the result any more this time than they have in the recent past.
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Forget the polls! The only poll that counts is the one on November 5th.
If we all show up and vote for the Democratic Nominee, we destroy Trump. If not, he destroys us.
It's that simple. The choice is yours.