Tag: registeredvoters

This should be so over. Not only does no living former President of the United States – republican or democrat – support his candidacy, two of those former presidents are actively campaigning against him. His opponent and her allies have outspent him and his supporters two to one. Throughout his campaign, he has insulted women, racial and ethnic minorities, non-christians, LGBT persons, veterans, Gold Star Families and the disabled. He has been caught on a live microphone bragging about sexually assaulting women. He has been endorsed by only two of 62 large newspapers that have so far made endorsements for the General Election versus 52 endorsements garnered by his leading opponent. He has demonstrated alarming ignorance regarding most aspects of domestic and foreign policy. His candidacy has been embraced by the most “deplorable” elements of American society and by the authoritarian leadership of Russia and North Korea. The incumbent president, the incumbent vice-president, the current First Lady, and the primary opponent of his general election opponent are all engaged in a level of retail campaigning against him that strikes us here at WokeCitizen as unprecedented. One would think that the poll results for a nominee with the above campaign profile would be fully reflective of his apparent unfitness for office. Yet, surprisingly, Donald Trump remains within striking distance of Secretary Hillary Clinton in some polls of likely voters.

To be sure, some campaign watchers are indeed talking about a Clinton landslide in the Electoral College. Secretary Clinton is tied with Trump or even leading in states (Texas, Arizona, ) that have traditionally voted for the republican nominee. But the RealClearPolitics average of presidential polls has Secretary Clinton ahead by 5.9 points (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html ). This is outside the standard margin of error for most polls, but not by much. Some polls and surveys (Rasmussen, IBD/TPP, LATimes) actually have Trump in the lead. A full 40% of likely voters remain solidly behind Trump. While this number is certainly well short of a majority, his level of voter support still seems large under the circumstances.

One can point to many reasons for this incongruity. Perhaps the level of anger held by working and middle class persons at the Washington establishment and at political and economic elites is real and reflected in poll results. While some establishment republicans have rejected Trump, perhaps economic ideologies behind tax cuts, deregulation and other traditional republican priorities trump (no pun intended) any concerns over the republican nominee’s demonstrated lack of basic human decency. For some, political power is the priority. For others, its political tribalism. Finally, one cannot discount the impact of racism, misogyny, religious ostracism and other forms of bigotry that infest the once Grand Old Party. With a couple of weeks left in this campaign season, not much can be done about any of these political and social dynamics that would assure an election night result reflective of current Clinton-favorable polling. But there are things that each of us can do that speak to what we at WokeCitizen consider to be a fixable shortcoming within the left-of-center coalition relative to modern polling. A shortcoming that has everything to do with the term “Likely Voter”.

Polls of likely voters tend to be more favorable to the republican nominee than polls of registered voters. In a September Washington Post-ABC News poll, Clinton led Trump by 10 points among Registered Voters, but by only half as much among Likely Voters. This difference reflects a fundamental assumption among pollsters, an assumption that many traditional democratic voters tend to prove true – that certain members of the democratic voting coalition tend to be unreliable when it comes to actually voting. Young liberals, as well as certain ethnic and racial minorities, are not expected to show up on Election Day in numbers that reflect registered voter polling results. Turnout among African-American voters in 2012 was higher than overall voter turnout. But pollsters clearly view that turnout level as anomalous, reflecting enthusiasm among Black people for President Barack Obama. As he won’t be on the ballot on November 8th, pollsters assume a lower African-American turnout and weight their poll results accordingly. As Secretary Clinton, the quintessential establishment candidate, lacks President Obama’s charismatic presence, pollsters assume that young voters will not be as motivated to place voting at the top of their November 8th priorities. Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer dismissed the impact of Hispanic voters, saying that “they don’t get out and vote”. In short, pollsters view the democratic coalition to be fragile in comparison to republicans. Add to this the impact of third party voting and republican voter suppression efforts and pollster assumptions about Black, Hispanic and millennial voters do not seem unreasonable.

But there is nothing stopping these voters from defying pollster assumptions. Black, Hispanic and young citizens can shake up the polling world, send pollsters back to their analytical drawing boards leave and many political prognosticators scratching their heads. Along the way, they can not only put Secretary Clinton into the White House with a clear governing mandate, they can give democrats a majority in the United States Senate that fundamentally transforms the Supreme Court for a generation and American society beyond the foreseeable future. If the democratic coalition turns out at levels that narrow the difference between registered and likely voters, Secretary Clinton wins in landslides of both the popular vote and the Electoral College. That we here at WokeCitizen endorse such a shakeup should come as no surprise to anyone.