Polls, 2020 and Beyond

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.

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.

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

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