Polling Whiplash

Today on TAP: All polls are prisoners of subjective assumptions. As a great student of public opinion said, ‘Don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin.’

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If you follow poll results, you are probably suffering from the latest roller-coaster whiplash. Yesterday, NBC released a poll with astonishingly good news for the Harris-Walz campaign.

Harris is up by five points nationally, 49 to 44. More importantly, her approval-disapproval score has improved by a record 21 points, from 50 percent negative versus 32 positive in July to 48 percent positive against 45 negative in mid-September. Trump, meanwhile, has descended further into negative approval territory. And Harris has gained significantly among Black and Hispanic voters. Whew!

But then, the dawn’s early light brought this depressing news from the New York Times/Siena poll. Trump is ahead, and has actually gained ground, in the key battleground states of Arizona and Georgia, and is slightly ahead in North Carolina.

More from Robert Kuttner

How can both polls be accurate? They can’t. Here I turn to the wisdom of the indispensable Michael Podhorzer, who astutely points out that all polling is “opinion journalism.” Why? Because pollsters make assumptions about who is a likely voter and how to weigh or overweigh different demographic groups. “The ‘opinions’ are not about issues or ideology, but about methodological approaches,” Podhorzer writes.

Even the bad-news Times/Siena polls offer one piece of good news. Another recent Times/Siena poll has Harris up by four points in Pennsylvania. And she appears to be ahead in the other blue-wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Because of still-unfolding events in Georgia and North Carolina that will affect the presidential contest, it’s far too early to reach definitive conclusions from polling about either. The Times/Siena poll was conducted before the gubernatorial campaign of Mark Robinson imploded in a shower of porn and Nazi revelations.

Today, it was announced that four of Robinson’s top campaign staffers have quit, including his campaign manager. If Democrat Josh Stein wins by double digits, which seems entirely possible, it’s hard to believe that some of that won’t drag down Trump, who called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

And in Georgia, the fight is still playing out to prevent three corrupt Trumpian election commissioners from gaming the rules to hold down turnout and make it easier to rig the count. Opposing them are Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Trump steal the election in 2020. The Times/Siena poll queried “likely voters,” but especially in Georgia we don’t know who likely voters are.

Even if Harris does lose Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina (which seems unduly pessimistic), she will still win the presidency by 270 to 268 electoral votes, if the blue wall holds and an effort in Nebraska to change that state’s system for counting electoral votes fails. Nebraska, like Maine, allocates its votes by congressional district. And the Second District, Omaha and suburbs, generally votes Democratic.

There is a move by Republicans to change Nebraska’s system to statewide winner-take-all. But that takes two-thirds of Nebraska’s unicameral legislature. To get that, Republicans need the votes of all 33 of their caucus. But one key Republican, Mike McDonnell, who is termed out, plans to run for mayor of Omaha; and if he votes to deprive Omaha of its usual electoral vote, his campaign is toast. So far, McDonnell is a no, and he reiterated that today.

Here is a poem written in 1916 by Carl Sandburg, called “Limited”:

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.

(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: “Omaha.”

Gentle reader, we may all be going to Omaha, where one man may determine whether American democracy passes to ashes. But I’d be surprised if the election is that close. In the meantime, let’s take all poll results with a ton of salt.

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