Underneath the Polls, America Quietly Decides
The intimidation factor is real, and it’s showing up in everything from the overblown “undecided” numbers to the lopsided leads for Joe Biden.
If you don’t see a lot of bumper stickers for Donald Trump in your area, it’s not because he has less support, a new poll explains. At least 59 percent of the president’s supporters told the University of New Hampshire that they don’t advertise their choice for fear their cars would be vandalized. Only 16 percent of Biden fans said the same. Even fewer — 14 percent — worried about their houses with yard signs, while 52 percent of Trump supporters thought their property would be damaged if they tried. Is this part of the “silent majority” people are talking about? George Barna thinks so.
The intimidation factor is real, and it’s showing up in everything from the overblown “undecided” numbers to the lopsided leads for Joe Biden. “I say this as a guy who’s been doing polling for more than 40 years and has worked in various presidential campaigns,” Barna said on “Washington Watch,” and “I think that this time around, there’s a lot of funny business going on with the polling. I think that there’s probably somewhere between at least a four to eight percentage point ‘hidden Trump vote,’ if you will, for a variety of reasons…”
In that same Granite State survey, Trump supporters were also half as likely to talk to their friends and coworkers about who they were voting for than their Biden counterparts. And if they won’t tell a colleague, there’s no reason to believe they’d tell a pollster. Trafalger, the only firm who accurately predicted 2016, insists the same phenomenon is playing out four years later. Trump supporters, who’ve been targeted, harassed, publicly shamed, and marginalized don’t want to be judged. But it would be a mistake, Barna agrees, to mistake their silence for a lack of enthusiasm.
As a matter of fact, SAGE Cons (the Spiritually-Active, Governance-Engaged Conservatives) are about as involved as they can get. These are the people who understand that they have a biblical responsibility to bring their worldview to bear on every part of their life — including politics. They make up about 10 percent of the population, but they have an enormous impact on the outcome of the election. And that’s not going to change any time soon, based on what George is seeing. “We’re looking at above 90-percent turnout [for this group],” he says. Higher than it’s ever been. “In the last election,” he points out, SAGE Cons were troubled by both candidates. Didn’t trust either one of them really but knew that they had to make a choice. So they turned out and they made the best choice they could based on what they knew about them this election…“
Now, four years into the most pro-life, pro-family administration we’ve ever seen, they’re much more comfortable with Donald Trump. I saw that enthusiasm firsthand this morning, when I went to early vote. In a predominately conservative area, I talked to a lot of the folks in line as I waited an hour to cast my ballot. Our movement is motivated, and if we could find a way to multiply that impact with the almost SAGE Cons (adults who meet about three-quarters of Barna’s qualifications), "we’re talking about almost 20 percent of the population” voting on biblical values.
Look at it this way, George says. Consider how much “energy and effort and resources is devoted by campaigns and parties [to populations] like the gay constituency, [which is] three, maybe four, percent of the population — [or the] African-American constituency, 12 percent of the population. This is a group that’s bigger those…” And, more importantly, it’s one of the most reliable voting blocs there is. Why? Because they’re not driven by their emotions or the political winds. They’re driven by fixed biblical principles based on truth. So their outlook doesn’t change — and their voting behavior rarely does either.
When they step into the ballot booth, they care about these three things most of all: abortion, religious freedom, and federal court appointments and nominations. President Trump, as we know from his long list of accomplishments, checks all of those boxes. So if there’s one way you and I can bring along the almost SAGE Cons, it’s by reminding them what this administration has done.
There are probably one out of every seven or eight voters in this country who don’t know as much about [President Trump’s record]. So while they may like many things about him, while they share that conservative perspective about what ought to be done with the government, they’re not nearly as well-informed… And that seems to be what’s holding them back from being more excited about voting in this election and voting for Mr. Trump.
Of course, the media hasn’t done America any favors — going out of its way to ignore the promises Trump keeps. Most voters haven’t turned on the television in the last four years and heard about the groundbreaking ways this president has protected the unborn or gone to bat on religious freedom. That’s why it’s so critically important that we share this information with our friends, our family, and anyone else who may not be where we are in terms of engagement. And PrayVoteStand.org has a pile of resources to help you do that! We have the Trump Accomplishments, broken down by life, family and religious liberty, and international religious liberty. Our teams have even translated those resources into Spanish, so that we can reach even more people.
At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words — even Tweets. And in an election as important as this one, that — not personality — is what matters.
Originally published here.
Dems Absent As Barrett Proceeds to Floor
If you didn’t know any better, senators said, you’d have thought it was an NFL arena. When Republicans walked in the committee room to vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, the Democrats weren’t there. Instead, their colleagues had been replaced by cardboard photos — poster-sized pictures of random Americans with fixed smiles, looking on like a row of fake fans lining a stadium stand. Only this wasn’t a stadium. It was the Senate Judiciary Committee. But thanks to liberals, games were still being played.
It was “surreal,” Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters later. And it wasn’t just that Democrats boycotted the vote, he said. It was that they chose to “continue this theater” that Barrett’s confirmation would somehow be the death knell of American health care. “Judge Barrett deserves a vote and she will receive a vote,” Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement Wednesday. “Judge Barrett deserves to be reported out of committee, and she will be reported out of committee. Judge Barrett deserves to be on the Supreme Court, and she will be confirmed.”
By the end of the hour, Graham was right. She was reported out of committee at record speed — on a unanimous 12-0 vote, no less. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), like a lot of Republicans, think the only ones the Democrats harmed with that stunt were themselves. “It is a shame that our colleagues on the other side, having failed to lay a glove on Judge Barrett, have walked out on this process and in so doing, walk out on the American people,” he shook his head. They didn’t even have the nerve to come and vote against her in person.
Maybe they didn’t want to be on the record in the face of Barrett’s skyrocketing popularity. Since her nomination, even the liberal-leaning polls have pointed to a meteoric rise in approval — as much as 20 points in the last three weeks. Making matters even more complicated for the Left, the mom of seven seems to be gaining ground with Democrats. Thirty-two percent of Democratic voters now say they support Barrett’s confirmation — a spike of 18 percent since pollsters started asking. Through four grueling days, they saw what Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) did: “a sharp, qualified, legal superstar.”
Only the radical Left, Marsha pointed out on “Washington Watch,” dislikes her. Why? Because, after clerking in Washington D.C. for the late Justice Scalia, Senator Blackburn explained, “[She] didn’t let them verbally beat [her] into submission to a leftist agenda.” She went back to Notre Dame, became a “wife, a mom, a professor.” Frankly, Senator Blackburn said, they wanted a “Stepford wife of liberalism” who agrees with them on everything — who doesn’t challenge them or thinks independently. But ironically, she told our listeners, those same liberals “are choosing intellectual isolation” — not the diversity they claim to want.
“Here’s the important distinction between the two sides of that dais,” Blackburn explained. “While one Democratic senator stated that he feared Barrett would usher in an era of conservative activism, he accidentally revealed that what Democrats want is an era of liberal activism. The Democrats, in their zeal to ‘pack the court,’ or at least ‘balance’ it… are looking for activists who will do the party’s bidding. That’s what they expect. Conservatives, on the other hand want constitutionalists who will call balls and strikes. If a law needs changing, that’s our job in Congress, not the business of the judiciary.”
Now that Barrett’s nomination is headed to the full floor, make sure your voice is heard. Call or email both of your senators and urge them to fill that seat!
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
