A Message To Democrats. You Can’t Have It Both Ways

I have a simple, honest, direct question for all of the Democratic breast thumpers and fainting couch ingenues out there. Ever since the shocking results of the 2016 election, you guys have over the last 7 years have bitched and bellyached about the total uselessness of the inaccurate polls. And today, 14 months before election day, when you see polls showing Biden either trailing, or in a dead heat with Trump, you can’t change your Depends fast enough while you put your Nostradamus hat on and gloomily predict the end of at least American democracy, if not civilization itself.

Come on now gang, Which. Is. It. Freaking. Going. To. Be? You can’t have this kind of sh*t both ways, otherwise you’d be Republicans. Either the polls are a steaming pile of sh*t, in which case you ignore them, like you would anything else useless, except maybe rap music, or they’re the gold standard, and you crawl under the bed for 14 months. *Hint* The reputable polls have largely been accurate all along. It just depends on how you want to define the word poll.

I’ve written on multiple occasions previously empirically showing how the actual polling numbers in 2016 were accurate, and have been since. But those were actual polls, taken at the time that the general election was at its height, and interest was at its highest in the election.

Riddle me this, Riddler. If you go to lunch tomorrow with four friends, you can’t even get all five of you to agree on where to go today! Now try to get everybody to agree on where to go to lunch on October 19th, 2024? Most intelligent analysts call polls taken this far out a snapshot in time. And they’re 100% correct. You tell me. If it’s February, and you and your family are planning a June vacation, how many times do you change your minds on the dates, destination, and itinerary?

But there’s a really good reason to completely disregard these polls. Interest. Right now the GOP is gearing up for an incredibly nasty primary fight starting in January. And the candidate field is a true workbench of misfit toys. Everybody is already trying to out nasty each other, and whether the other candidates mention it or not, Traitor Tot’s pending legal trials are a topic of conversation. Interest on the GOP side is high, especially from Trump voters, but also from more moderate GOP voters who believe it’s time for a change.

And on the Democratic side? *cheep-cheep-cheep* Whatever that space cadet RFK Jr. may think, Biden is running unopposed. And while some whiner bag Democrats may moan about Biden’s age, he’s the candidate, and they’ll come home. Besides, do you have any idea how many birthdays and anniversaries they have to plan for, much less Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years before then? Most non political junkies like you and me won’t even tune in until at least June of next year. That’s the fabled enthusiasm gap.

But putting the polls aside for a moment, there is plenty of reason for the Democrats to be of good cheer, and motivated. The first reason was provided on MSNBC yesterday by Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina. He reminded us that at this exact time in the 2012 campaign, Obama was suffering through the lowest approval rating of his presidency. It was so bad that Time magazine put out an issue with a picture of Obama on the cover, and a single word caption, Toast! And we all saw how that one turned out.

But I like the 2nd one even better. Earlier today MSNBC had on Biden’s polling and statistical analyst. I’m sorry, I don’t recall his name, but I loved the guy. I loved him because he made me feel smart, and I love it when people do that for my dumb ass. Especially smart people. And he laid out two examples, both of which are in my wheelhouse, since I’ve previously written about both of them.

First, he reminded everyone that in 2018 the general polling showed a modest gain of 10-20 seats for Democrats, and moderate losses in the Senate. The Democrats went on to flip 40 seats in the House, and lost only 1 Senate seat. And in 2022, the polls showed a prospective gain of 50-60 seats in the House, and retaking the Senate. Instead the GOP barely flipped the House with an ungovernable majority, and lost a seat in the Senate. It wasn’t the result of bad polling, it was the result of two things that don’t show up in standard polling. One you have to find in a subtab, and the other you have to go and look for.

The first is voter enthusiasm. Most of the larger, more reputable and reliable use pools of likely voters, who have voted in at least the last two elections, as opposed to registered voters, who can vote, but are less likely to turn up. In 2018, the universal national repugnance to all things Trump, especially with white, suburban women voters, gave me the feeling that the turnout was going to be massive to protest Trumpism. And it was. And in 2022, the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v Wade once again spiked incredible voter backlash, even among voters who normally would rather die in harness than vote in a midterm election. The result was the same, a spanking for the GOP.

The 2nd factor is my own personal favorite hobby horse, off year and special elections. In 2017 there were a slew of special elections, due to His Lowness staffing his administration with House flunkies from safe red districts. The Democrats blew the doors off. While they didn’t actually flip a seat, they cut the average GOP margin of victory by 22 points. This was a clear indication of a mammoth enthusiasm gap between GOP and Democratic voters. And in the Virginia state elections, the Democrats literally came within a coin toss of flipping the House of Delegates.

And the same thing has been true of the 2022-23 cycle. In 2022, every GOP state that had an abortion rights bill on the ballot has passed by overwhelming margins. In uber gerrymandered Wisconsin, the liberal candidate for Supreme Court Justice beat the GOP candidate by a whopping 11 points. Not bad for a state that’s historically 50-50. She ran on abortion rights. And in special elections, the Democrats have actually picked up a couple of seats, and made McCarthy’s position almost untenable.

And here’s the McGuffin. Both of those elements, voter enthusiasm as well as abortion rights are going to be front and center, as is another Democratic stronghold rallying point, gun control. Trump is going to be on the ballot, convictions or no, enraging everybody who rose up in 2018, 2020, and 2022. There are abortion measures on the ballot in multiple states, once again guaranteeing massive turnout. And Biden’s push to use a single line of language in the gun control law he passed last year, changing the definition of a purchase requiring a criminal background check from one who makes 60% or more of his living selling firearms to the new legal language of anyone who profits from the sale of a gun will enrage the GOP at closing the gun show loophole, and energize the all important 18-29 voting bloc to show up to see it through. These are all things that don’t show up in polls, but that influence peoples opinions when they walk into the voting booth.

I will close with this. Thanks to the tireless efforts of an amazing grassroots organization or local progressives, overcoming every obstacle in their way, including a GOP engineered special election meant to doom their effort to failure, there will be a proposal on the Ohio 2024 ballot enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution on the ballot. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is also on the ballot, a prestigious GOP slayer. If memory serves correctly, Trump won Ohio in 2020 by an underwhelming 4-5%. Don’t write Ohio off as being a surprise Biden pickup. And remember his. NO GOP presidential candidate has ever won the White House if they lost Ohio. And the abortion issue alone puts that critical GOP state in play.

Sweet Jesus! Right now Trump is at 33% support from independents. If that holds true, and they vote down ballot, not only is Trump going down, the Trump acolyte GOP is going down with him. Don’t whine, and don’t moan. Organize. Talk to people. Donate if you can, like I do. Knock on a few doors. Make some phone calls or send texts. And for Gods sake, start showing some support for your candidate! That will make more difference than anything else.