About those polls

*Sigh* No, I am not about to start prognosticating on the basis of some recently released poll or other, so don’t you roll your eyes at me! But it’s kind of a fact of political life, you can’t have an election, or even a campaign, without polling. Although imperfect, polling is the most effective way we have of obtaining a “snapshot in time” of how the body politic feels about a particular issue, candidate, or match up. And of course, a poll is only as accurate as its methodology.

Right now, almost all polling being conducted is in the 2020 Democratic primaries, which only makes sense considering, proclamations from the ghost of William Weld notwithstanding, Trump is running unopposed. When looking at these polls, people love to keep preaching from the mount that “it’s early yet.” And indeed it is, but not that early, Most candidates have been running around like nuts now for the last 5-6 months, making speeches, shaking hands, snarfing local delicacies, and polling at 0-1% is not a positive sign. True, the Vegas Golden Knights came within 3 games of winning a Stanley Cup in their first year, but the smart money wasn’t on them.

But as much as the polling is centered on the Democratic primaries, we are seeing some national polling, as well as some early “battleground state” polling of head-to-head match ups between Trump and the “top tier” Democratic candidates. And it is that context that I want to point out something that I think a lot of people are missing, and it really should be considered.

A new poll just showed all 4 top tier Democratic candidates beating His Lowness nationally. I don’t have it handy, but I believe the numbers were something like Biden 52-43, Sanders 51-44, Warren 48-43, and Harris 45-44. Yes, I know that it’s freakin’ early yet, but none of these are good news for Trump, if for no better reason than Trump is the most purely “set in stone” opinion President in modern history in terms of his popularity, whereas most of the Democratic candidates have “room to grow” with people who don’t know them that well yet. There is plenty of time for voters to change their minds and warm to Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris, but very few people are going to change their opinion of Donald Juan Trump.

Now, here’s the part that nobody is thinking about, and personally, I think it’s very enlightening. In the latest poll I just saw, a NBC News-WSJ poll, Je Biden was leading the pack at 26%, Warren was at 19%, and Harris and Sanders were tied at 13%. Most recent polls have been consistent with this one, with individual candidates fluctuating by 2-3%.

But here’s the McGuffin. Think about it for a minute, right now Joe Biden leads the Democratic pack with only a quarter of the Democratic primary voters backing him, and yet 52% of national voters have him cleaning Trump’s clock! Bernie Sanders actually cracks a smile on a day when he can hit 15%, and yet 51% of American voters have him kicking Trump’s ass! None of the top tier Democratic candidates have anything even approaching a lock on the nomination yet, but whoever one actually reaches the promised land already has a plurality, if not a majority of the population who want them to remove Trump from suckling at the public teat, and go back to cheating at golf on his own dime!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Trump fatigue, Trump Fatigue, say hello to the American people. The San Andreas fault should be as stable as Trump, California would be a lot safer. Trump has sat between 41-45% since the day he took office, mostly because he has turned a fire hose of shit on everybody else to keep his cuttlefish IQ base entertained. Trump is committed to recreating the Miracle on the Marne of 2016 that led to his electoral college victory, but screw that if these numbers stay the same. Forget about WI, MI, and PA, if these numbers hold up, Trump is in mortal danger in places like AZ, IA, OH, FL, and GA, leading to the kind of electoral debacle that would remove any whining about a “rigged election.” But we’ll have to wait on that until we start to see some actual state by state polling later in.

Alright, alright already, I know, it’s early yet! But Trump’s numbers are extremely unlikely to get better, and could well get worse. And the point I’m trying to make is that while the Democrats are still kicking and eye gouging to determine who their eventual candidate will be, the majority of the rest of the country doesn’t give a fat rats ass who it is, just so long as they can vote for him or her, and sand blast this orange graffiti off of our public image.

But here’s the caveat. After all, this is the real world, not Trumptopia, so there’s always a “but.” t all comes down to us, you and me. A wrench is a wonderful tool, but if you don’t tighten it on the pipe and turn, your house is still gonna fill up with water. Talk is cheap. Anybody can pick up the phone and tell a pollster who they’re going to vote for, but if they don’t actually get off of their asses, drive over to the high school gym, and pull a goddamn lever, then it was all just jerkin’ time. Never forget that for the next 17 months.