Why I don't believe the polling for the Presidential race.

 

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Public domain photos

As you are almost certainly aware the Presidential election is next Tuesday. If you trust the polling you might be expecting a massive blue wave that elects Joe Biden as president, costs the Republicans the senate and increases the Democrats hold on the house. 538 says that President Trump only has an 11% chance of winning. 

If you believe the polls the election is already over and the Democrats have won, not by the skin of their teeth, but by historic margins. But me? I don't believe the polls. At all. Indeed, I think the entire thing is an effort to depress Republican votes and has very little relations to reality. 

There are a lot of problems with the polls themselves. For one thing I don't think they did much to fix the systemic issues they had in 2016, where very few polls correctly predicted President Trump winning and the electoral landslide he accomplished. 

One of those problems is the "shy Trump" problem. Many Trump voters are afraid to answer that they are voting for Trump, either for social reasons or because they are concerned about retribution. I know my outspoken support has cost me some friendships and I can see why some people would prefer to remain silent. And even worse, people are afraid of retribution, either losing their jobs when people find out or even violence. Is it any wonder why people don't answer polling truthfully?

However, I think the "shy Trump" problem isn't the only problem they have. I really don't think the left understands how much the average GOP voter absolutely despises most polling companies. As far as many of us are concerned the polling companies are the enemy. At best they are lying about the true level of support that President Trump has, at worst their actions are an effort to support voter fraud by making the effort to steal the vote more plausible. I really think that the most prominent pollster, Nate Sliver, is one of the most hated men in America right now. 

Indeed, I think a lot of Trump voters are lying to the pollsters out of spite. They hate the polling companies and want to see them embarrassed in 2020. Doing so is win/win/win for them. First, if Trump wins the polling companies will be humiliated and would possibly go out of business. Second, it could depress the Democratic vote if they think they are so far ahead they won't even vote. Third, it will light a fire among GOP voters who might not otherwise vote if they thought they were winning. 

But let's forget about the polling for a moment. Consider this, if there were no polls would you think that President Trump is losing? Let's take a closer look at what is actually happening in this country:

President Trump is drawing tens of thousands of people to his rallies. Everywhere he goes he gets a ton of voters showing up. Even in Blue states like California and Maine. Biden on the other hand has hardly gotten an event with more than 1000 people, and I am not even sure he has gotten that. Some of his events barely break double digits and if he or his surrogates get to triple digit attendees it's a big deal.

Even worse, Trump supporters have begun to show up at Biden events. These Trump supporters usually outnumber the Biden supporters at the events and have tried to disrupt them. They ran a Biden bus out of Texas with a large convoy of Trump supporters chasing it. It's to the point where the Biden campaign has closed their events to the public and are no longer announcing where their events are. 

 

Here is it running Red light. #RoadTrolling Biden/Harris Bus. So much fun https://t.co/cIHovtOjkg pic.twitter.com/NvtoGniSgN

— Keith (Ghost) (@GhoSTorM143) October 29, 2020

The amount of voter enthusiasm for the Trump campaign is amazing. Not only are Trump, Mike Pence and Trump's family drawing huge crowds there have been hundreds of spontaneous grassroots events  in support of the President. During the summer there were massive boat parades, some so huge that it caused waves that actually sank boats. Now car parades are more common, some of them having thousands of cars and extending for miles. 

There is also data from the primaries that show that President Trump is doing well. Even though he was an incumbent, Trump got a record amount of votes supporting him. I know that I went out and voted for him even though the primary election was mostly pointless, just out of spite for the Democrats. And that was back in April when everyone was still scared of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Voter registration has been in favor of the Republicans as well with many swing states showing a major uptick in republican voters. Though new voters are often unreliable it's still a very bad sign for the Democrats that they are getting fewer new voters then the Republicans. 

Not to mention the fact that the Hunter Biden scandal is having a bigger effect then the Democrats are admitting. Even though the story has been censored, the censorship has greatly increased the interest in the story. I think most people have a vague idea now of what happened, even if they aren't clear on all the details. They know Hunter Biden is a degenerate wastrel who is corrupt and his father is responsible for him.

And it's also pretty clear that Joe Biden is not in good health. He looks frail and ill compared to Trump, who didn't even let a Coronavirus infection slow him down that much. Biden's mind is fading and even today he stumbled on his words making zero sense. The guy just isn't the same man that Americans have known since the 70's.

“#Trunalimunumaprzure!!”

Grampy Dementia has the strategy to mobilize whatever the hell that is.

pic.twitter.com/X7lu4Lmv3G

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 30, 2020

 

Most of all though I have been watching the campaigns themselves. The Trump campaign is not acting like they are losing and the Biden camp is not acting like they are winning. If Biden was truly ahead he wouldn't be spending time in swing states like Pennsylvania and Minnesota (!), he'd be in more traditionally red states like Iowa, Georgia and Texas. Biden did have a couple of events, but I tend to think that had more to do with senate and congressional races, not an actual attempt to win the states. And President Trump? He's trying to win new states like New Hampshire, Minnesota and Nevada, all blue states that he barely lost in 2016. 

But more then anything else, the attitude is the biggest sign I have seen. President Trump is happy, confident and cheerful. But Biden and his allies in the campaign and media? They seem crestfallen, angry and confused. It's clear that they aren't confident at all that they will win. 

All of this and more makes me think that the polls are at least inaccurate. I don't think the polls are telling the story, largely because I think the pollsters are lying through their teeth. And the "Biden is in a double digit lead" just doesn't make sense given the rest of the data I am seeing. It makes zero sense that Biden can't even get 100 people at most of his events but is somehow going to win in a landslide.

So does that mean that Biden doesn't have a chance to win? Of course not. It's very possible that Biden pulls out a slim victory. I don't think the campaign is strong at all, but that doesn't mean that he could win, either through fraud or on his own merits. Nobody will know until November 4th, and maybe not even then. But what isn't going to happen is the massive "blue wave" election where Biden wins in a landslide. The polls are wrong.