The Polls Are Like Crack: Read More, Need More — the Less You Trust Any of Them?
By: Joseph Serwach
Tags: Politics, Trump, Journalism, Life Lessons, 2020

Joe Biden confirmed 2020 public polling was all wrong (again) when he announced a last-minute, end-of-campaign trip to Minnesota.

It had been 48 years since a Republican presidential candidate won Minnesota, the home of Democrat stars Ilhan Omar, Amy Klobuchar, Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphrey. Biden shouldn’t need to campaign there.

But Donald Trump almost won Minnesota in 2016 when he won upsets in neighboring Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.

The daily 2020 polls predicting a blue wave, including a big Biden win in the Midwest, were discredited by Biden’s trip to Minnesota. One day earlier, an ABC-Washington Post poll claimed Biden would win neighboring Wisconsin by 17 percentage points, 57–40. FiveThirtyEight claimed Trump had just an 11 percent chance of winning. The Economist gave Trump a 4 percent chance.

Why is Biden in Democrat Minnesota instead of stealing GOP Texas, a place pollsters called ripe for a pickup? Because the polls and the stories about a wave flipping Red States blue were as wrong as the polls in 2016 and 2018.

“I hate to acknowledge it because that’s my industry — at least partially — but the public will have no faith. No confidence. Right now, the biggest issue is the trust deficit,” Frank Luntz told Fox News. “Pollsters did not do a good job in 2016. So, if Donald Trump surprises people, if Joe Biden had a 5- or 6-point lead, my profession is done.”

Jim Lee of Susquehanna Polling and Research complained about “garbage polls” showing a double-digit lead for Biden in Pennsylvania, adding, “I called on the American Association of Public Opinion Research to crack down on egregious polling to tighten standards for firms that clearly don’t understand the landscape of Pennsylvania.”

Minnesota, which elected wrestler-turned-independent Jesse Ventura governor in 1998, has been ground zero for the campaign's biggest issues: the George Floyd police brutality case, months of riots, calls for defunding police, anxiety over losing jobs, changing political norms, and the pandemic.

All the top issues add up to concerns about security. Republicans think they can win Minnesota for Trump and upset incumbent Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), yet another pickup that was not predicted in months of polling.

This all harkens back to 1948: Dewey defeats Truman?

A smiling former President Harry S. Truman (left) holds a copy of the famous Chicago Daily Tribune paper declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Public domain image courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration and Wikimedia Commons.

Gallup was so certain Republican Tom Dewey would defeat Democrat Harry Truman in 1948 that the firm stopped conducting polls.

Democrats had held the White House for 16 years, Republicans had taken back Congress two years earlier, Democrats were sharply divided, and all the experts assumed Truman was toast.

The experts who are often wrong were so sure Truman was finished that they missed the story, the crowds coming to see “give ’em hell Harry’’ campaigning across the nation. Simultaneously, Republican Dewey took it easy (a second Democrat, South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond, was dividing the Democrat vote and won much of the South).

The Chicago Tribune ran an infamous page one headline in its early edition, saying, “Dewey defeats Truman.’’ Truman won with 49.6 percent of the vote and 303 electoral votes in a three-way race. Being the sitting president in the White House helped a great deal.

The number of polls has exploded — but most are wrong…

Many polls follow the Real Clear Politics “poll of polls,’’ which averages all of them every day. We read polls daily as news shifts from a focus on what is happening now to an ever-anxious fretting about what might happen in the future.

Polls are like crack: you read one (it seems like news), and you want more. But the more you read, the less satisfying they are. Twelve polls were released today, eight the day before. All year, they’ve predicted a Biden win and a blue wave. Biden largely stopped campaigning.

But the few pollsters who were most accurate in 2016 and 2018 (predicting Republican wins) are again predicting a Trump win. And when pollsters ask the historically more reliable questions of “who do you think will win,’’ “who do your neighbors support,’’ and “are you better off today than you were four years ago,’’ Trump again wins.

Yet, the public polls and pundits keep talking about a Biden win as conventional wisdom. Even Fox News conservative stalwarts like Sean Hannity say it will be “an upset’’ if Trump wins re-election.

When you don’t trust polls (does anyone?), test these alternatives

The Incumbency Rule

In the past 100 years, seven incumbent presidents have run for and won a second term. Just three (Herbert Hoover, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter) ran for and lost re-election.

Just one of the seven presidents winning re-election won fewer votes the second time than the first (Barack Obama). All others were more popular the second time they ran than the first, and Franklin Roosevelt won a record four times.

Incumbents win nearly all elections at all levels year after year, decade after decade. It’s a huge advantage.

The historical challenge of the vice presidency

In the early years of America, several vice presidents rose to the presidency, but that streak halted nearly 180 years ago, with Martin Van Buren, the eighth president (and vice president for Andrew Jackson).

After that, vice presidents tended to only rise to the presidency through death or resignation. Vice President John Nance Garner declared, “the vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit.”

Many vice presidents ran for the presidency but most lost, including Al Gore and Walter Mondale. The biggest problem with the vice presidency: once Americans see you as №2, it’s harder to imagine you in the top role.

The two exceptions: Richard Nixon (vice president under Dwight Eisenhower) became his party’s nominee in 1960 and won in 1968. George H.W. Bush (vice president to Ronald Reagan) won on his own in 1988 but lost in 1992.

Real numbers

TV ratings and betting markets are an indicator of what people are actually doing. The betting markets favor Biden, but the TV ratings favor Trump.

Over the past four years, MSNBC won rating races only on days when Trump seemed to be in crisis, but Trump-friendly Fox News has set new records throughout 2020, as has Rush Limbaugh.

Biden (like Hillary Clinton) should win based on the “who spent more money’’ yardstick of traditional campaigns. But Trump negates that “rule’’ by his massive amount of TV coverage via news events, interviews, town halls, and rallies.

The Halloween mask and cookie buying data

Since 1972, whichever candidate inspires more sales of Halloween masks has won. Donald Trump is beating Biden in Halloween costume sales by a 66 percent to 34 percent margin.

Similarly, bakeries from battleground Pennsylvania to Texas have conducted “cookie polls’’ where voters can buy cookies named after their favorite candidate. Trump is similarly, winning each of the cookie sales polls.

Enthusiasm, yard signs, events — and “on the street’’ reporting

All polling shows Trump voters more enthusiastic than Biden backers, and we have consistently seen bigger crowds at Trump rallies than at Biden events.

MSNBC this week asked 50 Arizona voters who they had supported in early voting (Democrats have a clear advantage in early voting and absentee voting) and found 49 of 50 saying they voted for Trump.

Travel schedules, ground game, tell us what internal data says

The presidential campaigns arrange their travel schedules based on their own internal research (polling, people in the states).

Want to know where the race is close? Look at where they travel. Trump is going to every state he won narrowly in 2016 and congressional districts he narrowly lost in 2016 (in places like Minnesota and New Hampshire).

Biden’s trip to Georgia (a state Democrats haven’t won since Bill Clinton) looked like a clue that Biden might be heading to a big win (expanding the map), that the public polling might be accurate. But the trip to Minnesota was a red flag showing he is playing defense in places Democrats win routinely.

“I think we’re going to win Michigan. I think we’re going to win Wisconsin. I think we’re going to win Minnesota,’’ Biden said October 26. “I think we have a fighting chance in Ohio. I think we have a fighting chance in North Carolina. We have a fighting chance in Georgia. A fighting chance in Iowa.’’

But just four days later, Biden was going to the places he said he “would win” rather than the ones where he said he had “a fighting chance.’’