What if Donald Trump was going to stand trial for murder? Would he still be this far ahead in the polls?
No?
How far down do you think he’d be? Would he still be ahead?
Yes? Maybe?
What does that say to you about politics?
What if we end up looking back at this time as when we had no idea what kind of tsunami Trump’s federal trial was about to be, and how much it would upend the presidential election?
What if testimony from his top aides and clear-cut evidence of his criminality drown out every other news story for months?
It’s easy to panic, (but please, don’t) based on polls and Trump’s dominance of the news, but Chris Christie is right—the beginning of Donald Trump’s federal trial is the end of his political future.
What if Donald Trump goes into the Convention as a convicted felon awaiting sentencing for multiple federal crimes that could see him spend decades in prison?
Would he lose points in the polls? How many?
What if the prospect of nominating a convicted felon who’s likely to rack up additional convictions starts to worry the Republican Convention?
What if, just like the last time, Biden seems like a sensible choice compared to Trump, even if he walks like a (very) old man?
What if abortion is again a dominant issue, with ballot initiatives protecting or rolling back abortion rights driving Democratic turnout?
What if the House looks like it’s totally gone for the Republicans and Democrats look to be making gains in the Senate?
What if Mitch McConnell and what’s left of the Republican Party figure out a way to hijack the Convention?, or,
What if Donald Trump gets offered a plea deal to stay out of prison if he drops out of the race?
What if they nominate Nikki Haley? Or Chris Christie? Would Trump endorse—or would he tell his people to go back to being non-voters?
What if the polls we’re all in a panic about are, as I’ll keep pointing out, obviously unreliable?
I’ve previously stated my views on the grain pillar of salt with which you should take stories about polls. I quoted Dan Pfeiffer’s The Message Box from last September:
“When was the last time you answered a call from an unknown number? Almost all polling calls are marked “potential spam” by the iPhone. A few years ago, someone involved in the Obama data team told me that the response rate for our polls dropped 50 percent from 2008 to 2012 and then 50 percent again in 2016. It’s safe to say that Democrats aren’t the ones answering calls from unknown numbers and then spending a considerable amount of time on the phone with strangers.”
I live in a rural area where people still have landlines, and cell coverage is whimsical. One of the upsides of this arrangement is a robotic voice from my phone warning “spam risk” multiple times a day. Maybe you have a similar feature you use to screen calls. Remember that next time you read about a poll of people who did answer their phones.
What if everything you (think you) know is wrong and Donald Trump really can’t get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue—or criminal conspiracy?
Isn’t that at least worth thinking about while you’re watching the panic and rending of garments on Morning Joe?
Sigh. I lived in Atlanta in the 70s, when the man who won an Atlanta City Council election was in jail for selling Marijuana and heroin. Though he won election, he never served a day in office. He pled guilty and instead served another kind of term.
And the Mayor of Washington D. C. won re-election AFTER a video of him smoking crack in the 80s.