Besides the polls, what are you worried about?
Self-help for anxious Democrats
I’ve been talking to Democratic candidates, PAC directors, party officials, grassroots activists and voters, and everyone agrees that what they’re feeling on the ground is different from what people are saying about the resurgent Republican “Red Wave.” (Does anyone but me find that term a teensy-bit ironic?)
As I observed in an earlier post, “Polling Is Broken,” we all have filters on our phones that read “spam risk” or “unknown caller” if a telemarketer or pollster is on the line. That’s why callers now have to dial for two straight hours before completing a single interview.
What’s more, this eye-opening quote from a National Journal article (for me, by way of the indispensable website, PoliticalWire) is worth repeating:
“The entire concept of polling depends on having a set population from which one can take a random sample and get a generally representative snapshot. Pre-election polls have no existing population—the election hasn’t happened yet, and voting isn’t compulsory in the U.S., so we simply don’t have a population of who voted until all the polls have closed on Election Day.”
“We can’t remedy that. The population of voters will never exist prior to the election. Expecting polls to be able to consistently, accurately predict an election is asking more than is statistically and theoretically possible.”
While I don’t discount the value of accurately interpreted issue-based polling, the evidence is clear that horse-race polling should be taken with a Biblical amount of salt.
Want proof? Ask yourself questions like these:
Do you truly believe that Herschel Walker is going to win the Senate race in Georgia? Answer this question without using the words, “the polls say.”
Staying with Georgia for a minute, do you think the record-breaking early voter turnout of more than 1.25 million—or one in five active voters— is made up of a lot of Republicans?
Is Lee Zeldin really tied with Kathy Hochul in New York? (Again, answer without referencing polls)
OK, it was a bad debate. But can Dr. Oz really beat John Fetterman? (
polls)!Agree or disagree: the Kansas abortion amendment showed how potent the Dobbs decision is as an election issue.
Bonus question: Without Donald Trump on the ballot, do you think the MAGA vote turnout will—a) stay at 100%, b) increase, or c) drop by enough to make the difference in some close elections.
As they say in Hollywood, “nobody knows anything.”
Logic—which I know is not always determinative in politics—makes a Herschel Walker/Lee Zeldin/Dr. Oz sweep hard to imagine. If you only believe twitter and cable news, voters are too scared of inflation, crime and Joe Biden to contemplate voting for Democrats. But maybe that’s just who is answering those pollsters’ phone calls.
A reader up North writes, “Ya, at least 2 calls a day on the land line here in Maine from Mr. Spam Risk — I’m sure the Paul LePage voters are eagerly picking those up…
Meanwhile the rest of us non-Neanderthals are voting early and offering rides to neighbors and working a shift at the firehouse polling place on Nov 8!”
We don’t know who will turn out in this election, but everything that I’m seeing tells me it will be a lot of women.
I spend a lot of my time writing about abortion rights, and for me, the Kansas vote was a game-changer. In a state where just a quarter of registered voters are Democrats, nearly 60 percent voted against the amendment in the biggest turnout for a primary in the state’s history.
Democrats have been right since the Dobbs decision to spotlight the threat to women’s lives from the ascendant Republican policy to give politicians more control over women’s bodily autonomy. No one wants that for their daughters, grand-daughters, nieces or loved ones, and it looks like they’re prepared to vote about it.
But I’m still worried about GenZ. The Harvard Youth Poll indicates that 40% of 18-29 year olds say they’ll “definitely” vote in the midterms, what John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School of Politics is calling a “GenZ wave.” I’m not sure that’s good enough.
In 2020, an Ipsos/Aristotle poll for FiveThirtyEight found that 78% of voters aged 18-34 planned to vote in that year’s elections, but the actual turnout (for voters age 18-24, not an exact match, but still relevant) was 51.4%—the lowest percentage of the electorate. As usual, seniors ages 65-74 comprised the most influential voting bloc, casting 76% of the ballots.
I’ll say it again—young voters can help Democrats hold the House and pick up seats in the Senate. Make it your mission to talk to someone who might not otherwise vote about why they absolutely, positively, must.