We keep hearing about polls and how the former guy is a few points ahead of our current president, and how the former guy is gaining in support in the black and Hispanic communities. There are a few things wrong with this.
First, we are months away from the election and most people aren’t paying attention yet. There is a wide swath of voters that always vote for one party or another because they always have, or their parents or spouses did. They plan on voting the way they always have unless something dramatic comes along to change their minds.
Second, unless I am badly mistaken, they still do polls over the phone. This means landlines, not cell phones. Who still has a landline? Geezers such as myself. Most people have caller ID on their landline, and who answers the phone if it’s an unfamiliar number? Or if the landline identifies the caller as a polling firm, who is more likely to answer? The older and more enthusiastic the voter, the more likely it is they will answer the phone.
Third, polls over the last few years have been wildly inaccurate and there is no reason to believe they will improve. The polls predicted a red wave in the 2022 midterms but it never happened. Recently a poll said Dean Phillips had the support of 12% of Democrats, and even Dean Phillips tweeted that he doubted if even 5% of Democrats knew who he was. Polls are showing increased support for the former guy among the black and Hispanic communities and that is simply not credible.
Fourth, polls are based upon assumptions created during the infancy of modern American politics in the 1950s. Before then, politics was done at the conventions where the delegates actually did something, but with the advent of radio and tv things changed. We now have social media and 24 hour cable news, the old databases are no longer relevant and the electorate has changed significantly since the 20th century. Times have changed, polling has not.
Fifth, the only poll that really counts is when people vote. Votes are real, polls are projections. Every single vote since the 2020 election, state, local, and even federal, has been a rejection of the former guy and his extremist followers. The former guy has won the primaries but a significant portion of his party has actually voted for someone else. None of this indicates the former guy leading in any polls anywhere.
Polls don’t matter, votes do. Vote.