Friends, the reliability of the polling data supplied by the mainstream media has come under question, well, forever, but especially since their massive errors in 2016. My latest article asks the question: how believable are the predictions of a "blue wave" in November, based on the allegedly scientific and objective data on which these predictions are made? It turns out that polling is an art, not a science, and there is ample reason to question whether the GOP's collective goose is as cooked as the Left wants us to think... Read on, and be comforted by my analysis, which is coming soon to the virtual pages of American Greatness!
Consider the Source: Polls
Predicting a “Blue Wave” Are Not Reliable
Republicans are
understandably distraught when they hear the mainstream media
endlessly repeating the mantra that there will be an historic “blue
wave” in the November midterm elections. President Trump's
allegedly incompetent and borderline-tyrannical misrule of the
rightfully indignant American people will produce a suitable
backlash, we are told: Democrats will surely take the House, and
possibly the Senate. Will the Republican Party even survive this
shellacking? The verdict is out.
This
narrative is supported by polling conducted on behalf of major news
organizations. CNN's latest poll, conducted October 4th-7th, is a
good case in point. It claims that, in the “generic ballot”
question that asks whether likely voters are inclined to support the
Democratic or Republican candidate for the House of Representatives
in their local district, Democrats hold a massive 13-point edge:
54-41%. Wow! Truly, the race is over, if this poll is to be believed,
and Republicans are the losers par
excellence. Or is it
that simple?
When one drills
down to the particulars in the CNN survey, one finds myriad reasons
to doubt its accuracy. For one thing, it forecasts a “gender gap”
of unprecedented proportions: it finds that 63% of female likely
voters will back the Democrats, compared to only 45% of men. Although
it is normal for women to be more supportive of Democratic candidates
than men, the size of the discrepancy seldom exceeds 10 points. This
is suspicious.
Even more damning
to the reliability of the poll is its prediction that voters over 65
will favor Democrats by 18 points! This is in the realms of pure
fantasy, given that older voters have consistently favored
Republicans in recent years, and in 2016 they voted for Republican
House candidates over Democrats 53-45%. A “blue wave” might, in
the most optimistic scenario, mean that Democrats would tie
Republicans among older voters, but the notion that they could win
this demographic in a landslide is an absurdity.
The CNN poll is
equally dubious when it comes to race. In 2016, according to exit
polls, white voters favored Republican House candidates by 22 points:
60-38%. But in 2018 CNN predicts Republican House candidates will win
the white vote by only 1 point. Nonsense.
There are deeper
reasons, however, to mistrust the CNN poll and others like it. Above
all, we should consider the history of polling, and how frequently
individual polls, and even the average of polls, can be wrong.
It's
no secret that in 2016 the polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would
be our next President, and yet here she is in 2018 – a private
citizen, albeit an outspoken one. What is more interesting, for our
purposes, is that, also in 2016, many polling organizations were
asking the usual “generic ballot” question of voters: in their
district, would they prefer the Democratic or the Republican
candidate for the House of Representatives? Based on the
RealClearPolitics average of major polls, at
no point in the 2016 election cycle (May to November) did Republicans
have a lead on this question, and yet Republicans won the national
popular vote for the House by one point and maintained control of the
chamber. Let
that sink in. Polling averages generally favored the Democrats by 3
to 5 points, they never
favored the Republicans, and yet the Democrats still lost. How could
this be?
The
answer is, in part, that there are, included within these national
polling averages, bogus polls like CNN's monstrosity predicting a
13-point win for Democrats. By no means is this the first time that
CNN has overrated Democratic strength. In 2006, the last time there
truly was a “blue wave,” Democrats won the national popular vote
for the House by 8 points. Nonetheless, the last CNN generic ballot
poll showed Democrats winning by 20
points!
That's a large discrepancy, to say the least.
CNN polls are not always this wrong, of course. In 2016, the last
CNN poll of the generic ballot question favored Democrats by 3
points, whereas Republicans won the national popular vote by 1 point.
Thus, CNN was in the tank for Democrats only to the tune of 4 points.
An improvement from 2006, therefore, but still a poor reflection on
the accuracy (or lack thereof) of CNN's polling operations.
The potential for CNN, and other major news organizations, to
misconstrue, or even deliberately misrepresent, the leanings of the
electorate is vast. One has to wonder: how many CNN reporters and
pundits would be willing to bet their annual salary on the notion
that Democrats will win the popular vote in House races this year by
13 points? Not many! One suspects that the 13-point number is, in
fact, not designed to be predictive at all. It is instead designed to
shift the narrative – to make news, rather than report it – and
to encourage Democrats while discouraging Republicans.
CNN's latest whopper continues a trend in recent polling, as polling
averages routinely overrate Democratic strength. In 2014, for
instance, the RealClearPolitics polling average for the generic
ballot question ended up favoring Republicans over Democrats by 2
points, but Republicans won the national popular vote by 6 points.
CNN was even less accurate than the national average, needless to
say. In its last poll of that cycle, it favored the Democrats by 1
point.
In the final analysis, what does all this mean? Polls are far from
useless, but the American people should exercise caution and
discretion in interpreting them. They should also keep in mind that
recent polling by major news organizations evinces a consistent bias
in favor of Democrats.
If, therefore, the current RealClearPolitics average for the generic
ballot question puts Democrats up by 7 points, then this result is
likely skewed by garbage polls like CNN's. History suggests that the
Democrats' edge is likely more modest: say, 3 or 4 points. That small
advantage, which is certainly liable to additional shrinkage, may
well be insufficient to put the House of Representatives in Nancy
Pelosi's gnarled hands.
It's possible, moreover, that even that 3- or 4-point edge is
illusory. Rasmussen Reports' latest poll has Democrats and
Republicans tied at 45% on the generic ballot question. And
Rasmussen, lest we forget, was the most accurate polling organization
in 2016, predicting Hillary Clinton's narrow 2-point victory in the
popular vote. If Rasmussen is right again, then in 2018 Republicans
might do more than stave off disaster. They might actually win!
The takeaway? CNN wants Republicans to despair in the lead-up to the
2018 midterm elections, but the evidence says...not so fast!
As always, reports of the death of the GOP are greatly exaggerated.
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears weekly on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480.
And here is the American Greatness version:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/15/consider-the-source-polls-predicting-a-blue-wave-are-unreliable/
And here is the American Greatness version:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/15/consider-the-source-polls-predicting-a-blue-wave-are-unreliable/
