MAYBE. But Definitely Not Until AFTER Labor Day (Here's Why)
First, here are my simple rules to follow when considering the validity of any poll.
1. ELIMINATE Partisan Polls and Pollsters.
2. INCLUDE Undecided as an Answer.
3. ASK the Full Ballot. (not just Head to Head matchups)
4. AVOID polling emotion, stive to poll on Information.
5. IGNORE Polls until after Labor Day.
Now, let's talk about #5 for a minute and why you shouldn't be freaking if you're a Republican or planning your glass ceiling celebration of you're a Democrat.
Remember in elementary school when they taught you the 5 W's? Who, What, When, Where, and Why? It's no different in polling folks, and point #5 is all about the "When."
THE “WHEN”
I am absolutely convinced this is the #1 reason most polls and pollsters get it wrong. When you poll contributes to those other W's more than the others. So what do I mean by "The When?"
There are several rules here to look out for so let’s just simply list them.
1. The “Time.” 72 Hour Rule. Most any good polls should be taken over no more than 72 hours in order to get a representative sample. If you’re polling people over a week or a month, chances are things have changed over that period of time, meaning people you polled on day one may feel differently 7-10 days later. Be wary of polls that show larger gaps between the days they were taken. I can’t begin to tell you the number of polls I’ve read which were so terribly inaccurate because they began polling, something happened, and they kept polling. If a potentially campaign changing event takes place, throw out the old data and start over..do NOT combine it.
2. The “Time of YEAR.” Is it Summer? Because if you’re polling over summer, good luck! I can tell you from experience, no poll truly matters until AFTER Labor Day. Voters over the summer are busy…very busy. Vacations, kids out of school, and off a schedule. In other words, all over the place. But voters over the summer aren’t just busy, they’re also doing other things and most, other than the hard core political aficionados, aren’t paying enough attention to the ballot yet. In the summer gas is higher, travel is higher, and spending patterns differ. If you poll over the summer, you’re likely getting less voters on the phone, and you’re likely getting a less than informed, more emotional opinion. In fact, most polls will look nearly identical after Labor Day as they did prior to June. Those 3 months every summer are generally absolutely worthless polls! Take a look below from 2020, On June 1st of the last election, you see him lead Trump by 7 in April, and 7 after summer, despite the ups and downs, including an August Trump spike.
Now, for those of you freaking out curently, here's some irony for you, look below! You will see the Real Clear Politics average was Trump +0.3 in April, and you'll see it's still nearly the same today, with Harris +1. Both of those numbers are similar, and both are a full summer apart! All those polls in between sure don't tell us much, do they? All you see today is Trump rising, then coming right back to where he basically sat....In April!
3. The “TimING.” Keep going with me, will you? The “when” also refers to the actual date and how close to, or far from, an event this poll was taken. This is actually the #1 reason I think polls can be wrong, they tend to poll people in the midst of events rather than waiting for those events to set in or for the voters to have all the information they will acquire. Case in Point: Kamala Harris. A poll six months back , heck, a month back, when Biden was running? Can’t put too much stock into that now that it’s Harris, other than for general comparison maybe.
4. The Emotional “Timing.” - The Candidate. Take Harris again. She has now been the presumed Dem nominee for maybe a month, right? How well do voters know Harris? Hint: They will know her a lot better by November than they do know. Ditto for her running mate…and Trump’s. Any poll done right now is going to be highly EMOTIONAL, and less INFORMATIONAL. Voters, especially Dem voters, are excited about the switch. Will they be a month from now? We’ve already mentioned that a poll a month from now is a lot more informative than today. A month from now voters will be a lot more INFORMED on Harris, either good or bad. But if you’re polling today, of course you’re going to see a Harris bump, how could you not? It’s something Republicans have seen before…remember 2008 when after trailing Obama for well, pretty much ever, McCain was suddenly tied after choosing a little known female Governor from Alaska who voters absolutely loved….at first? That’s right, Republicans got the same exact jolt in the arm all the way back in…2008 with Sarah Palin!
“After announcing Palin as the presumptive vice-presidential nominee, the McCain campaign received US$7 million in contributions in a single day.[13] According to a survey by The Washington Post/ABC News published on September 9, 2008, John McCain had gained huge support among white women voters since the announcement;[14] he had not only surpassed the Democratic Party candidate Senator Barack Obama in white women voters, but also amassed a lead of five percentage points in the Gallup polls. John Zogby found that the effects of Palin's selection were helping the McCain ticket since "She has high favorability numbers, and has unified the Republican Party."
Sound like DeJa’Vu to you? It should.
“But take a look at now, look at how the race has changed. Instead of having a four-point advantage among women as Biden did, look at Harris’ advantage. It leaps up to 11 points,” he said. “What is occurred is women voters are flocking to the Democratic ticket. … That is the reason Kamala Harris has turned this race around.”
5. The Emotional “Timing” – The Convention. Conventions bring enthusiasm! Lots in fact. That same 2008 year, Dems held their convention first. Every poll showed Obama crushing it, even while McCain tried to steal that momentum with timing the Palin announcement on the first day of said convention. Every poll during that convention showed Obama winning, and only one showed him winning by less than the margin of error. Then came…the Republican convention….and wouldn’t you know it? McCain was suddenly up by as high as 10!
See all that BLUE during the Dem convention and all that RED during the Republican convention? Do you think it's a coincidence? of course not!
Go back and look. Every party gets a bump during their convention, mostly due to all the media coverage. But that doesn’t mean that enthusiasm lasts, because of.....
6. The Emotional Timing “Crash.” So you got a jolt from your candidate, and you’re (if your Dems) about to get a big one from your convention (sorry to break it to you Republican politicos) However, once voters have more information, will they feel the same? To answer that, I once again give you: Sarah Palin. First it was Charlie Gibson, than it was SNL, than it was Katie Couric…..then the VP debate. By October, the Palin enthusiasm was not just gone, it had taken the opposite effect.
As you can see above, HUGE bump around September 4thsih, after Palin was announced, and up through the 17thish....we're seeing these parties tied! However, as Palin’s inexperience showed, and the famous Katy Couric interview happened, it was all downhill from there! I could use plenty of elections to show you that same type of trend folks!
OK.....
So, just remember
Harris is surging,
The Harris surging will continue through the convention
After that it’s all on Republicans to figure out a way to blunt it!
Look, Harris has plenty of bad interviews out there just like Palin did! I mean, Americans just don’t know her as well as they should…just like they didn’t know Palin well!
Most importantly...unlike Palin....Harris has a questionable record that Republicans should be able to exploit...i repeat SHOULD..... whether it’s her embracing Bidenonmics or her possibly even more vulnerable record as a prosecutor, (sidebar, Republicans, less on immigration, more in inflation please) we’ll see.
But again, Republicans have plenty of chances to take the wind out of these sails, IF, they do it the right way. While we can hope, their ability and willingness to do so is sadly, debatable. (I’ll probably write a post on that very topic soon as well)
In the meantime, don't freak out (yet). I give you once again my simple rules to follow when considering the validity of any poll.
1. ELIMINATE Partisan Polls and Pollsters.
2. INCLUDE Undecided as an Answer.
3. ASK the Full Ballot. (not just Head to Head matchups)
4. AVOID polling emotion, stive to poll on Information.
5. IGNORE Polls until after Labor Day.
As always, shoot over your questions or comments anytime, and I’m happy to answer or clarify best I can.
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