Passion and Polling

As just about every commentator has noted, Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his bid for re-election has rebooted the presidential election.  While Biden’s departure has been breathlessly praised by Democrats as an act of supreme patriotism and selfless party loyalty, it is important to remember that he never should have been in the race in the first place.  He broke his promise to be a bridge to a new generation, putting his party and his country in a terrible spot, and then stubbornly hung on until it finally penetrated both his politician’s ego and the bubble with which he surrounded himself that he was going to be horribly humiliated.

During the post-debate weeks, Biden’s departure came to seem vital to everyone…but Biden…if there was to be any chance of defeating Donald Trump. At the same time, speculation grew, especially among pollsters and pundits, that if he did decide to drop out, chaos and an intraparty bloodbath were a near certainty.  In fact, events have played out quite differently.  By waiting so long, Biden did the party and his country a huge favor, albeit unwittingly.  Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans had sunk so deeply into despair that all their considerable anti-Trump energy welled up behind the dam of his refusal, so when that broke, it released a flood and not a trickle.

Rather than contesting the nomination, would-be rivals such as Gretchen Whitmer, who clearly wanted it, eschewed a run and fell in behind Kamala Harris, who went from untrustworthy, highly imperfect candidate to national savior literally overnight.  And the money—a quarter-billion dollars in three days.  If that isn’t a flood…

So now, where does the election go from here?  Most experts, columnists, and cable news panelists begin by looking for guidance where they always look—polling.

That may be a mistake.  While numbers matter, relying on quantitative analysis may be more than a bit misleading in projecting how the Harris-Trump election will play out.  While every pollster admits that each sampling is merely a snapshot, none will acknowledge how liquid many of those snapshots have become, and how often projections based on the results have led to totally fallacious predictions.  (If they had not, Hillary Clinton would likely now be completing her second term.) This does not even take into account how wildly divergent are the results of different polls theoretically testing the same hypothesis.

Polling has become what is known in literature as an “unreliable narrator.”  Unreliable does not mean definitively false.  If polls were wrong all the time, they would be reliable.  In some cases, perhaps even most of the time, as pollsters insist, they provide proper insight into the underlying issues they are attempting to illuminate.  But in other cases, more frequently than they care to admit, they will not.  The difficulty is determining which is which. 

And so, the answer to whether polling can be trusted to accurately determine the state of an unprecedented election more than three months off is…maybe.  For those putting their faith in quantitative analysis, the question thus becomes, is “maybe” good enough?

Likely not.

It might be equally useful to take a more qualitative route and, to the horror of most professionals, rely on feel.  In that case, the race, rather being Trump’s to lose, would be back to where it was when it began almost one year ago—a real reboot—with Trump having to overcome more potential adversity than Harris.

Assuming this election will be more like 2020 than 2016, when Trump was still a novelty and had yet to inspire the disgust and loathing that now dominates many segments of the electorate, the key to victory will again reside in the six swing states Trump lost, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  While most of those states were close, to win any of them this time around, Trump needed to either pick up votes or have Democrats lose them.  Before Biden’s exit, that had evolved from a possibility into a near certainty, especially in the three states outside the Midwest. 

Although the polls don’t yet reflect it, each of those three may now be back in play.  While the media has focused almost entirely on disaffected Democrats, Trump has his own problems with disaffected Republicans. 

Despite pronouncements that a near assassination had softened him, Trump is back being the insulting, heartless, kick-them-when-they’re-down bully and misogynist that cost him re-election in 2020.  That act is more shopworn than he thinks, and he is going to alienate quite a few non-MAGA Republicans in the coming months, especially since he will become increasingly offensive as he feels the threat against him increase.

J. D. Vance promises to be a disastrous choice for running mate because, rather than the “stabilizing” feel of Mike Pence, Vance is going headlong to reinforce the meanness and cruelty that will characterize another Trump presidency.  If swing voters are looking for a justification for voting against Trump, Vance will help give it to them.  And of course, there will be a slew of ads featuring Vance agreeing that Trump is a sexual predator and a danger to the nation.

Putting all this together, the scenario in which Harris’s candidacy prompts higher turnout while Trump’s is depressed is far from outrageous.

In the end, the key to this race will be passion, with which the Democratic Party is now brimming.  If Harris can stoke it until November, many voters who were either thinking that Trump might be the better alternative after all or had chosen to stay home might reassess.  If, therefore, she can successfully project that she can win, she likely will, because most voters want more than anything to be on the winning side.

If Harris is deft, she will claim partial credit for the Biden administration’s successes, of which there were many, and de-emphasize initiatives where the president was either unsuccessful or unpopular.  Republicans will attempt to reverse that, of course, but Harris can counter that she was loyal to the man who chose her—principled loyalty, rather than the hindquarter kissing variety employed by virtually every Republican, none more than J. D. Vance.

Harris’s biggest vulnerability is the still porous southern border.  After years of castigating Republicans as heartless bigots, Democrats have faced the realization that, in this case, conservatives were correct.  The constant surge of migrants trying to make their way into United States by any means possible has overwhelmed local services and, say what you will about Republicans shipping them to Democratic cities, the problem is now national rather than simply regional.

But that has a counter as well, since Trump personally and openly scuttled a bipartisan immigration bill, stating publicly that it was to avoid giving Biden a win.  Hardly America First behavior.

In the end, polling might become a more effective tool in predicting the November result as we get closer to November.  For the moment, however, observing how passionate is Harris’s support, and how shrill are Republicans’ pronouncements might provide better insight.