The Democratic Polling Problem: It’s the Economy, Stupid

Yes, yes, I know, things look good. We have enthusiasm, bounce, joy and we’re on a great trajectory. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers are out there. Money is flowing. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive questions about the latest polls, which are trending up for our side of truth and light. The people who contact me think “we’ve got this.”

But the polls in 2016 and 2020 severely undercounted a large group of voters. And it’s completely likely that they are being undercounted today. Therefore, we MUST WORK AS IF WE ARE 10 POINTS DOWN. EVERY DAMN DAY.

First, an aside about RFK. I am completely unconcerned about his voters going over to Trump. Nothing in the focus groups that have been following his candidacy over time indicate a mass movement to the convicted felon. Most recent aggregated data here.

But those undercounted voters? They are FOR SURE out there, and IF THEY VOTE, they will vote for the Convicted Felon, unless the Harris-Walz campaign is able to overcome their concerns.

“We” are concerned with democracy, equity, and rights. “They” are not. Many are concerned with being seen, and solutions being proposed for their problems related to kitchen table issues.

The undercounted voters? Some are “unseen” because they are young, and they don’t respond to polls. Others are “intermittent voters” or have voted either once before or never before (not a function of being 18 years old, these intermittent and non-voters are much older, and some helped the Convicted Felon win the Blue Wall states in 2016.) They are also overwhelmingly male.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be talking about “men” and “women” – there are no historical data sets on transgendered individuals: when their data is counted, it is via their gender at the time the information was compiled.

First, young men. Below is a chart from the Times which shows support by age and gender. The gender disparities are stunning, especially for people ages 18 – 29.

From the same article:

In interviews with young men planning to vote for Mr. Trump, they described feeling unvalued. They said it had become harder to be a man. They valued strength in a president. Yet they didn’t express bitter misogyny or praise the exaggerated displays of brawn embraced by the Trump campaign. Their concerns were mostly economic, like whether they could fulfill the traditionally masculine role of supporting a family.

In recent years, the two parties have been seen as offering men different visions of their place in American society, researchers said. While the right has embraced conventional masculinity, the left has seemed to shun it, leaving many young men looking for an alternative.

One more fun fact from the article:

Almost half of men 18 to 29 say there is some or a lot of discrimination against men in American society — more than older age groups, and up from a third in 2019.

Put that all together with the fact that these people DO NOT THINK THINGS THROUGH, and we’ve got a mountain to climb in terms of persuasion and permission structure.

Even those you’d assume COULD think things through, fail miserably. Take Jason Shepherd, lawyer, political science professor. He watched Vice President Harris’ acceptance speech:

He admitted that parts of Ms. Harris’s speech had moved him. At one point, he said, “I like her better” than Mr. Trump. Source.

But:

He flinched when Ms. Harris attacked Mr. Trump, contending that an acceptance speech was a time for a candidate to act presidential and seek unity. Source.

Think about it: “Ms. Harris attacked Mr. Trump”. Is that sexism or racism? It appears that he couldn’t care less about the Convicted Felon attacking virtually everyone. Can he spell cognitive dissonance? I doubt it.

If it’s possible to overcome the toxic masculinity, the cognitive dissonance, and the overall apathy of these men, it will be necessary to talk to them about the economy, because it’s the biggest thing to them. They seem to believe that “men” are supposed to be able to be “breadwinners” and support a family. And yet, if you look at the attendance at the collegiate level, more women attend and graduate than men. Trade school attendance is lower than it used to be. And we know what that means.

To be fair, there are somewhat rational, undecided voters of both genders who are very concerned about the economy. I previously wrote about how to talk to people about the economy. Going forward, as the Harris-Walz campaigns on their economic policies, it will be incumbent on the campaign to keep those policies front and center. They poll well: Source

Our work, as people who talk to voters, will be to find and convince those people in the grey area in the chart above.

The one major thing we have going for us is that women register to vote in higher numbers than men, and then vote at higher percentages. If you want to have some fun, take a look at these statistics on voter registration and turnout AND the number of people who SAY they voted (which is much higher than is possible given actual data.)

Bottom line, said best by James Carville in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

So, don’t get distracted by the polls. The work will get us where we need to be. Only the work will get us there.