About Those Polls

We know practically nothing

😱😱😱😱😱😱

I wanted to say a few words about a series of battleground state polls that was published in The New York Times over the weekend. Yes, the numbers are terrible. And, among other things, the result are a reminder that, thanks to the electoral college, a handful of states decide presidential elections and something really needs to be done about that: remember that although President Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by over 7 million votes, his margin of victory was approximately 43,000 votes across three swing states.

First, a couple of technical points. The sample size of the surveys is small and the people polled are registered voters not likely voters. Almost a fifth of respondent didn’t vote in 2020. And the swing of Black voters towards Donald beggars belief: 22% say they’ll vote for him, a number for a Republican never seen in modern American politics. For context, Donald got 8% of the Black vote in 2016. For further context, Donald is a horrible racist.

Whether these polls are accurate or truly representative of how voters feel at the moment, it’s beyond disturbing that, of the two leading candidates, the only one being asked to step aside is Joe Biden. As a country, we clearly are in a very bad place.

Think about it:

In the last three years, Donald Trump has continued to spread the big lie, compounded the treason he committed on January 6^th by promising to pardon the insurrectionists currently serving time in prison, been found liable for rape, continued to align himself with Putin, Erdogan, and Orban, praised Hezbollah terrorists, and is currently facing four criminal indictments—and far too much more to mention.

During the same period of time, President Biden has created almost 14 million jobs, given massive amounts of support to Ukraine in its fight for democracy, championed choice and the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans—and far too much more to mention.

Just as in 2016 and 2020, the media are normalizing Donald’s candidacy—despite his COVID response, the insurrection, and his various crimes—because he is the leading Republican nominee.

Joe Biden has saved the economy, the Western democratic alliance, and (at least temporarily) American democracy, yet he is not afforded the same courtesy.

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People have lost their flipping minds.

I appeared on the Mehdi Hasan Show on Sunday night and Mehdi asked me about a New York Times/ Sienna poll that had just came out.

In answer to the question, “Does Joe Biden have the ‘mental sharpness’ to be an effective president?” 62% of respondents said no.

When asked the same question about Donald, on 44% said he does not have the ‘mental sharpness’ to be an effective president.

These are not typos.

Obviously, this poll was taken before Donald’s mind-boggling testimony in his New York City fraud trial, but these numbers are staggering—and chilling.

I hadn’t seen the poll before Mehdi asked me about it and, after I saw it on the screen, I almost said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” because this is just an insane finding.

I was asked to address this as a psychologist, but this is not about the psychology of voters.

Americans are focused on Joe Biden’s age (and, hence, “mental sharpness”) because almost every news organization, not just those on the right, are more obsessed with the fact that Biden is 80 than they are concerned with legitimate questions about Donald’s indictments, and his obvious unfitness and potential cognitive decline.

I told Mehdi that I think the issue is what the media chooses to focus on. “For example,” I said, “we've been hearing endlessly about Joe Biden's age not just from right-wing media that are in the tank for Donald, but we see it in the headlines of major newspapers. What we don't hear about is Donald's increasing inability to remember where he is, or who is president of where, or whom he ran against in the last election. I think that the gravest danger we are facing in this particular context is that Donald's egregious behavior—from his criminality to his mendacity, to his lack of intelligence and his total unfitness — is assumed to be already baked in to the equation and, therefore, is not considered news; it's just a given. So, people don't even pay attention to it anymore. That's very concerning."

The corporate media need to do better, but we obviously can’t rely on them to do better. We can hope that Donald’s court losses, including convictions, rack up and erode his support, but we can’t count on that, either. The number of unknowns in this election is vast. It’s important to acknowledge that.

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Caveats about polls aside, should we be worried about the 2024 election? Of course. This election is going to be close no matter what. Some of the reasons for this are structural (gerrymandering and the aforementioned electoral college), some cultural (we share this country with a lot of people who are disconnected, uninformed, awful, or some combination of the three—also, a stunning number of Americans don’t vote); and some institutional (disenfranchisement, the corporate media).

The media want a horse race. So far, it looks like they’re going to get one.

That doesn’t mean we have to put a lot of stock in any poll a year out. Polls have been consistently wrong over the last three election cycles, but beyond that, they shouldn’t change our behavior anyway. Regardless of what polls say, over the next 12 months we need to organize and get out the vote as if the race between Donald and Biden is neck and neck.