Widget Image
Follow PPD Social Media
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
HomeOpinionThe Hidden Poll That Points to a Trump Landslide

The Hidden Poll That Points to a Trump Landslide

President Donald Trump jokes with the crowd President Donald Trump touts record low unemployment for minorities during a rally in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. (Photo: Laura Baris/People's Pundit Daily)
President Donald Trump jokes with the crowd President Donald Trump touts record low unemployment for minorities during a rally in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. (Photo: Laura Baris/People's Pundit Daily)
President Donald Trump jokes with the crowd President Donald Trump touts record low unemployment for minorities during a rally in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. (Photo: Laura Baris/People’s Pundit Daily)

With President Trump rising in the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls, the temptation is to extrapolate his re-election chances. Even mainstream media pollsters have grudgingly admitted as much in their latest polling, such as the ABC/Washington Post Poll headline, Trump reaches new heights.

Of course, this would lead one down the same very large, as it encompassed the entire punditry, rabbit hole that swallowed all the aggregators and mainstream media in 2016. It must be clear to everybody by now that four-way polling has little direct correlation with an Electoral College result and even less so when done on a two-party basis.

It is perfectly clear third- and fourth-party polling is always inflated over the actual result. Some of their support scurries back to one of the two major parties to prevent either from winning. But residual third and fourth party support is enough to make popular vote predictions dubious at best, particularly those of the disastrous betting markets.

It leads to silly statements such as, “If only Johnson hadn’t run as the Libertarian candidate Hillary would have won.”

This is not to entirely discount popular vote polling in 2016. Final likely voter polls, stripped of partisan bias and meaningless “adult” and “registered voter” responses, were more or less accurate. The aggregate of final polls were off roughly 2.5 points of Hillary Clinton’s actual support.

Some, like the Monmouth Poll (Hillary +6), were disastrous. Others, such as Fox (Hillary 48%/Trump 44%), were excellent and off by just 1.9 points.

The failing was in some state polling, especially Wisconsin and Michigan. Pennsylvania was well within an acceptable margin of error. The biggest failing was pundit bias, presuppositions, and misreading of the polling.

Even the touted Nate Silver — who was lauded in some quarters for not giving Hillary an over 90% probability of winning in his final analysis — pegged her probability of victory at 85% if she won the popular vote by 2 points or more, which she did.

On the other hand, the top five professional political scientists’ academic forecast models predicted the popular vote outcome. In one case, Brad Lockerbie was nearly exact to within 0.1 point and astonishingly months in advance of the actual election.

This begs the question as to the value of not only polling but conventions, massive advertising, get out the vote slogging, debates and all the other paraphernalia and rituals of presidential elections.

Before we discard all pollsters and rely entirely on the seemingly infallible political scientists — such as the famous academic Alan Lichtman, who has predicted every presidential election winner for thirty years straight — there may well be an overlooked “hidden” poll that will be the best indicator of Trump’s chances.

Apart from the headline job approval aggregation, RCP also tracks an aggregate of Trump’s “Favorable/Unfavorable” rating.

On July 15, 2015, his favorability rating stood at 22.7%. One has to admire Trump’s self-belief to seek the presidency with that rating. By Election Day on November 6, 2016, it had climbed to 37.5%. In unison, pundits noted it was the worst of any presidential candidate, ever.

Clinton was also underwater at 41.8%. Despite his favorability rating, and despite the pundits, Trump still received 45.9% of the popular vote. His vote share was 8.4 points higher than his favorability rating.

Trump’s current aggregate favorability rating at RCP is 43%. His approval is around the 45% mark. If the same formula applies, then his current approval would look more like 51.4%. Consequently, that is right in line with the only “likely voter” approval poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports, which gauges him at 48%-50%.

It may turn out that the chastened pollsters and pundits, if that were possible in respect of the latter, may get their act together and the 2020 outcome correctly. It may also turn out the professionals and Professor Lichtman carry the torch for the academics so impressively once again. 

But until the favorability prediction formula is proven inaccurate, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to not include it prominently in the mix for 2020. If 37.5% favorability ended up with 306 votes in the Electoral College, then at this point at 43%, it indicates Trump by a landslide with Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire in play and 322 electoral votes.

Written by

M. Joseph Sheppard is an author and columnist who writes on politics and economics. Called "A Leading Pundit" by Newsmax, his articles have appeared and been cited on American Thinker, The Federalist, Time Out U.K. and numerous other venues.

Latest comments

  • It is hard for me to grasp that it is even close. The positions on any subject or policy the Democrat candidates profess would make Lenin blush. The GOP have enough ammo of these leftist knaves espousing anti-American sentiments on film to even have professors at Whatsamatta U. silently voting Republican, as much as they loath Trump. We really are doomed if one of these Leftists become president, the best of which has no business leading our country. I believe that most borderline voters will vote Trump, even if they see him acting boorish and embarrassing now and then.

    I’m glad to see the author parsing through these various polls that seem to be loaded to the Left.

  • Poll-smoll…..only an idiot would buy into any poll ever again. It’s like those clowns that say, “Well, research shows…” or, “All the the polls show…”

  • If the proffered candidates, are all the arrows in the Democrats quiver, it will be a landslide for President Trump……They have to realize that the American electorate, isn’t going to put any of the Democratic candidates, anywhere near the Oval Office…..We aren’t that stupid…….And the last time I checked, “Political Suicide” is not America’s favorite sport…Trump landslide, indeed…

  • Hickenlooper is looking good.

  • The real poll that Democrats should worry about is the Yahoo poll. Yahoo is solidly in the tank for Democrats and so, presumably are it’s readers. It has Trump up by something like 20 points.

  • If the current crop of Democrat Star Wars cantina scene freak shows were the only candidates, I would agree. Watch for the late entry of Hillary with Michelle Veep, or Michelle and Hillary veep; because “we listened and it’s what the people want”. Trump will still win but it will be closer.

  • You should all listen to me, Trump is an awful man, he cares about pollution, and war. So, you must ditch that awful man.

  • The sad truth is that unless Trump can achieve something greater than the moon landing, the demonkkkrats and republikkkrats have won the demographic and cultural war and this country’s demise is set. They destroyed the education system and the chickens are coming home to roost. Whether he wins in 2020 will only adjust the time line. Hopefully, Trump will listen to all the great engineering opportunities to reinvent the 21st century. It has been 75 yrs since the invention of the nuclear reactor, the jet, and the rocket and the world remains jet lagged, earth bound, and dependent on primitive energy. Trump could revolutionize the world if he looks at the engineering opportunities available. Only through mythical achievements

leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

People's Pundit Daily
You have %%pigeonMeterAvailable%% free %%pigeonCopyPage%% remaining this month. Get unlimited access and support reader-funded, independent data journalism.

Start a 14-day free trial now. Pay later!

Start Trial