Polls, 2020 and Beyond

American Thinker.com ^ | July 18, 2019 | Sally Zelikovsky

[Kaslin]

After polls completely missed the mark on Trump’s victory in 2016, polling data has been in the doghouse, but does that mean we should ignore all of it? Probably not, although that’s not to say we shouldn’t take many polls with a grain of salt. Overall, though, a good deal of polling is accurate if not just a snapshot in time and it would be reckless to proceed as if polls unfavorable to our candidate didn’t exist. Moreover, even if polls today turn out to be wrong on Election Day, they might still be instructive during the campaign and help drive results in our favor. Better to organize a campaign strategy around the worst-case scenario than wake up the morning after Election Day to (shudder) a President Harris or Buttigieg.

In order to prevail in 2020, Trump must secure states he won by narrow margins in 2016, that were critical to his Electoral College victory, but are currently in dangerous waters with disapproval numbers that are higher than his approval numbers. He must also hold onto states he handily won. To that end, Drudge recently posted a link to morningconsult.com that compares Trump’s approval and disapproval ratings in every state from the time he took office until the present. It’s a nifty interactive map that we ignore at our own peril.

[Buckeye McFrog]

1) I don’t believe the polls that show Trump underwater on approval numbers. My guess is that his actual approval with the public is somewhere north of 60%.

2) Polling beyond 2020 is pointless because the next four years is going to show whether or not Trump will be able to reverse gears on this country’s rapid shift to the left. If not the electorate we’ll have by 2024 and beyond will look nothing like a traditional American electorate. So there’s no point in trying to poll it.

[foreverfree]

Bump

[econjack]

Several problems:

First, many polls, like the current polls about democratic Presidential hopefuls, are conducted from a pool of registered Democrat voters. However, the MSM often doesn't even mention that fact and think the numbers are against Trump, not other Democrat candidates. The fact that people don't read carefully and the MSM's penchant for fake news makes this happen.

Second, in those polls where they do pit Trump against the Democrat contenders, many respondents do not admit they will vote for Trump. Indeed, I think that is a major reason the 2016 polls failed so miserably.

The pile-on in 2016 by "the experts" is a fun thing to watch. Try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G87UXIH8Lzo

[pfflier]

but does that mean we should ignore all of it?

In a word...yes unless pollsters have quit "adjusting" the responses for their own biases. The failures in the polls have been in process and integrity. Can you guess why no one believes them anymore?

[nathanbedford]

The bad news: In 2016 Trump was running against Hillary Clinton one of the most hated presidential candidates in American history with a redolent criminal history.

Trump's winning margin in battleground states in 2016 was razor thin.

Since 2016 Trump's unfavorable's have not much improved leaving him vulnerable.

Since 2016 Democrats have won the House of Representatives in 2018.

In 2020 Trump will not be running against Hillary Clinton.

The good news: Trump's economy is great. No president in modern times with an economy this good has failed reelection.

Trump is accumulating a series of visuals in foreign policy which show him acting presidential.

Trump's opponents are presenting themselves to be extremists, socialists, taxers, open borders, rank partisans, and worse.

The author asks rhetorically: "Short of that I don’t know what else we can do?" The Trump understands that his approval ratings, if not set in stone are at least set in mud. He also understands that he is not in a race against his own approval ratings he will be in a race against an actual human opponent. That opponent will not carry the extraordinary negatives which bedeviled Hillary Clinton, but there will be, as always and for every possible opponent, a full banquet of negatives to select and exaggerate. In short, Trump knows that he must compensate for his unfavorables by raising the unfavorables of his adversary.

For those who were surprised that Trump wrote the tweets which were so obviously foreseeably would generate charges of racism, this analysis just might be an explanation for his thinking. Trump knows that his favorables as much as his unfavorables are also stable as though they too were set in mud. His downside is therefore negligible so he is working to bring down his opponent to his level of unfavorables, just as he did with Hillary Clinton. He can do this with minimal cost.

[TennesseeProfessor]

All discussion of Trump’s approval rating should compare to what it was on election day in 2016. He won election with around 38% approval rating, and it’s substantially higher now.