The Patriot Post® · Polling and Pollaganda Déjà Vu

Suppose I were a deceitfully hyper-partisan scumbag. And suppose I were a pollster. But I repeat myself. —Anonymous

Most folks couldn’t give a rip about election-year political polling. We call those people “smart folks.” Some of us, though, can’t help ourselves — even though we know the polling is agenda-driven and intended to help Democrats and leftists by demoralizing and thereby depressing the turnout of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. That’s the definition of pollaganda: polling meant to drive public opinion.

Take, for example, this latest knee-slapper from Newsweek, whose headline gleefully reads, “Joe Biden Has 91 Percent Chance of Winning Electoral College, Latest Economist Forecast Predicts.” (Not 90%, but 91%. It’s scientific, after all.)

Strange, but we feel like we’ve seen this movie before. This electoral landslide-in-the-making all seems so familiar. Why, it’s as if we’ve seen this exact same 91% number somewhere before. Was it four years ago? And maybe just weeks before the election?

Son of a gun. The Trump-hating New York Times, in its October 18, 2016, Presidential Forecast, gave Hillary Clinton that exact same super-scientific 91% chance of beating Donald Trump. And we all know how that turned out.

Mark Twain once said that there’s no lesson to be learned from the second kick of a mule. So we’re left to conclude that these leftist pollagandists are either unteachable or masochistic. Or both.

Anyway, there’s actually some more realistic polling out there, too, but we have to search for it. Because the mainstream media doesn’t want us to know that, according to a new Gallup poll, 56% of Americans say they’re better off than they were four years ago, while only 32% say they’re worse off. During a pandemic. And leftists certainly don’t want us to know that in 2012, when Barack Obama was running for reelection, only 45% felt better off. And in 2004, when George W. Bush was running for reelection, only 47% felt better off.

That same Gallup poll showed that 49% of registered voters agree with President Trump on the issues, while only 46% agree with Biden’s handlers.

In a poll published earlier this month, Gallup also asked Americans whom they think will win on November 3. Answer: 56% expect Trump to win, while only 40% think Biden will win. This might have something to do with the massive enthusiasm gap — a 20-point advantage according to Pew Research — that President Trump enjoys over his listless, uninspiring, and cognitively declining opponent. (Students of history will note that the candidate holding the edge in enthusiasm has won the past eight presidential elections.) President Trump has regained his footing from COVID, too, and he’s back on the campaign trail drawing huge crowds. Joe Biden? Not so much. In fact, Trump is outdrawing Biden at Biden rallies.

There’s plenty of historically interesting data here, with one metric after another pointing to a Trump victory. Did you know, for example, that since 1820 we’ve had 11 pandemics during presidential election years, and that the incumbent’s record during those instances is 11-0?

But somehow, some way, The Economist and the rest of their Trump-hating leftist ilk want us to believe Biden’s got this baby in the bag.

Hogwash.