Election polls questionable; could mislead voters

 

Gordon L. Weil

Note:  My column this week will focus on the reasons to mistrust the polls, because this is a different election, one that may escape normal analysis. 

 

The New York Times/Sienna poll, considered one of the best, was just published, and it shows a 48%-48% tie between Kamela Harris and Donald Trump.

It touts the closeness of the race, but also reveals at least a couple of factors that can raise serious doubts about its reliability. And, like other polls, it fails to mention one.

To arrive at a sample of 2,516 responses, the number needed to bring the margin of error down to 2.2% when the sample is used to forecast the entire universe of voters, the pollsters made 260,000 calls to 80,000 voters.  It’s likely that many chose not to participate.

Unlike the earlier days of surveying, when it was possible to contact a random sample of voters, the net has to be cast much wider and the results have to be subjected to an analysis according to the pollster’s concepts.  Each pollster may use a different questionnaire and a different set of screening standards, but that is lost when polling averages are created.

These are the adjusting factors used by the Times/Sienna poll:

Sex, age, educational level, home ownership, marital status, party, race, region, voting history and intent to vote.

The net result is supposed to present an accurate profile of the American voting population, while recognizing that a sample of this size will have a margin of error around each of the major results.  That means that candidate A could be off by 2.2% and, at the same time, candidate B could be off by 2.2%.  At the extreme, the survey could really be showing a 4.4% gap between the candidates, i.e., it could vary significantly from the message publicized.   A difference of this magnitude between the forecast and the result has happened.

The reported results for each candidate leave 4% unaccounted for.  Some of that would go to other candidates, but maybe this includes some truly undecided voters.  Even one or two percent going one way or the other could make a big difference.

The unstated factor?  The forecast margin of error is only assured 19 out of 20 times.  The operation of the statistical method cannot do better.  This may not matter, but the average person is not told about this factor.

None of these observations suggest the Times/Siena poll produced a biased result between Harris and Trump.  It does suggest that this is a close race, because of the manner in which the data is managed and reflecting the decisions of the pollsters.  My column later this week  will question that assumption. And it also suggests that voters are invited to pay too much attention to polls.

 

That said, here is a personal observation on what people may tell pollsters.

In the Times/Sienna survey, a Wisconsin woman is quoted as saying that her concern about illegal immigration is what has determined her to vote for Trump.  This is a statement about how a single issue decided her.

Suppose you asked her how she could overlook some of Trump’s promises to take extreme action on matters ranging from high tariffs to arresting his political opponents.  Perhaps she would say that he should not be taken seriously, but that such statements are merely the way he talks.  Nobody really expects he would or could do such things.

Such thinking ignores two points.

First, the Supreme Court has given the president a blank check for the exercise of their powers.  The only real checks would be a Congress that could override their veto or impeachment and conviction.

Second, the person most likely to believe Trump is Trump himself.  While voters might not take his extreme promises seriously, if he is elected, he could well say, “I told them what I would do, and they gave me a mandate.”  It takes only one person to take him seriously – himself – and any thinking that he would not go to the promised extremes would not matter.

 

'Deep state'over shadows election; it's about presidential power

Gordon L. Weil

The “deep state” is neither deep nor a state.

Let’s “drain the swamp” to wash the mythical “deep state” down some cosmic hole.

If you succeed, what’s left?  Probably a smaller swamp.  And a one-person government operating openly to serve the purposes of that one person.

That’s what people mean when they warn about Donald Trump being a threat to democracy.  The American form of democracy is really a myth in his view, and the country is controlled by a hidden alliance between anonymous government officials and outside interests pursuing their own agendas. 

The “deep state” conspiracy lacks evidence and is designed to stir what a renegade journalist once called “fear and loathing on the campaign trail.”  This column now reveals the people behind the deep state: two U.S. presidents.  Ever hear of Chester Arthur?  Or Grover Cleveland?

In 1871, President Arthur, a Republican, took on the so-called “spoils system,” derived from the saying, “to the victor go the spoils” – if you win the election, you can shape the government to your will.  Too bad for people who don’t agree with you; they lose the protection of a government meant to serve all.  It was a form of legal corruption.

Arthur launched the civil service, a continuing corps of officials who maintain basic standards and operate essential programs, regardless of who is president.  The civil service, composed of government professionals rather than political loyalists, would allegedly become the in-house half of the deep state. 

A few years later, President Cleveland, a Democrat, approved the first independent federal agency, designed to regulate interstate railroads.  Independent agencies, run by expert panels with both parties represented, came to control complex matters beyond the ability of Congress to monitor successfully.  These experts cannot be removed for purely political reasons.

Trump doesn’t like the civil service or independent agencies. 

He seems to believe that the supposedly neutral civil service harbors people who oppose his policies and work to undermine his efforts.  His suspicion of barely hidden partisanship may be fueled by the heavily Democratic vote in D.C. 

The simple solution would be to strip people of civil service protection and replace them with loyal followers of White House policy rather than congressional intent.  That would expand presidential power.  Each election could result in sweeping changes in government with little consistency or reliability over the years.

As for independent agencies, a president might be able to overrule or influence their decisions.  Presidential power would come to dominate independent agencies, which in reality exercise delegated legislative power.  The shift of power from Congress to the president would continue.

But, even more significant, is the assault on independent agencies by a conservative Supreme Court, dominated by Trump’s appointees.  The Court is now severely weakening independent bodies, and this term will consider a case that could result in ending their regulatory authority.

Previously, the Court had allowed expert agencies to interpret the details of the laws under which Congress assigned them regulatory responsibilities.  The Court has now decided that the agencies should not have such powers.   Who can determine the meaning of the regulatory laws?  Why, it’s the courts.

The problem is that the courts lack expertise. In a recent majority decision, one Supreme Court justice mistook nitrous oxide for nitrogen oxide, substituting laughing gas for a dangerous chemical.

Aside from overruling the expertise of independent agencies, whose knowledge is beyond the abilities of the courts, the Supreme Court will now consider whether their ability to punish violators is beyond what the Constitution allows.  It could decide that such authority rests only with the president and the courts.

These attacks on neutral and independent components of the federal government are an attempt to strip Congress of the lawmaking power given to it by the Constitution.  The assault has been made possible by Congress itself shedding its authority, dodging major decisions and leaving them to others.

The elections will give people the chance to decide if they want a smaller government that offers them less protection and less regulation or the current system, as imperfect as it is.  Whatever the outcome, popular disapproval of Congress sends the message that the system needs reform.

The most obvious improvement would be for the unpopular Congress to begin doing its job. Many judgments now left to civil servants (those dreaded “bureaucrats”) and independent agencies could be eliminated by more simple and direct legislation, denying the special interests’ deals by not allowing for exceptions or special situations.

That could help ensure that the unseen parts of the deep state – corporate lobbyists working over regulators outside of the public view – would leave them only the public proceedings of Congress to press their demands.

An effective Congress, passing no-loophole laws, would be better than the personal rule of any president abusing their powers. 

Peacekeeping nearly dead

 

Gordon L. Weil

Peace came close to a fatal failure this week.

The global effort against war suffered a possibly mortal blow when Israel, a member of the United Nations, supposedly the world’s peacekeeper, attacked U.N. outposts and tried to drive them away.  

Just as Russia had unimaginably launched a European ground war against Ukraine, Israel flagrantly attacked the multinational U.N. mission monitoring its boundary with Lebanon.

In the fleeting glow of their World War II victory over Nazism, Fascism and imperialism, the winners set out to create international organizations with real power to step in to prevent conflict and provide a forum for negotiated solutions.

The U.N. was the most ambitious, and it eventually came to include almost all sovereign countries.  Its Security Council, dominated by the war’s leading powers, could mandate joint peacekeeping measures.

But Security Council decisions could be vetoed by any one of the five countries – China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.  China was soon taken over by the Communists and the Soviet Union, later replaced by Russia, wasted no time in reneging on its commitments and became the American rival.  A flood of vetoes came.

The U.N. could perform some useful functions even as peacekeeping efforts faltered.  It has tried to dodge the Security Council deadlock and use the General Assembly, including all members, to pass non-binding resolutions.  Groups of willing members could back peacekeeping measures proposed in General Assembly resolutions. 

Some peacekeeping operations have worked, because the U.N.’s thin blue line was respected.  Others have struggled, including one in southern Lebanon, begun under a Security Council order.  It has now come under the most serious attack ever by a U.N. member.  Contributors to the U.N. force insist they won’t budge, but Israel may not be held accountable.

Regional groups also developed.  In Europe, a new international organization was formed, designed to interconnect nations so that Germany and France could never again launch a world war.   It grew into the European Union.  It was openly based on supranationalism, authorizing EU agencies to overrule national sovereignty.

The effort was successful in creating a single trade area with a single market.  It was poised to make Europe a major world power alongside the U.S.   Then the demands of national sovereignty overwhelmed the promise of supranationalism.

Unlike a truly federal nation like the U.S., the EU required the unanimous vote of its then 28 members on many major issues.  Hungary, a small country, has tried to block decisions.  The U.K., preferring its sovereignty, Brexited from the EU.  No common foreign or defense policy could be agreed upon.   European unity was half done, leaving it far short of its original promise.

The U.N. and the EU, both common efforts to build working relations among nations and reduce the chances for renewed warfare, did not accomplish their purposes.  Instead, the world relies on military alliances whose strength might deter others from aggression and war.

NATO is the prime example.  Equipped with a unified military command and responsive above all to the U.S., its most powerful member, it served as a deterrent.  But it grew weaker as it became more successful.  Only after Russian aggression proved that NATO had let its guard down, did it renew itself.

In the Pacific region, China’s increasingly hostile moves have led to new military cooperation.  AUKUS joins Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. in a cooperative agreement. The Quad includes Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. in developing defenses against China. The U.S. also has defense agreements with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.  

As peacemaking gave way to deterrence, Donald Trump’s administration was striking because it accepted neither.  He quit three U.N. agencies and the Paris agreement on the environment, threatened NATO and killed the deal slowing Iran’s nuclear weapons development.  His “America First” policy alienated potential allies.

This isolationism was accompanied by his fawning over authoritarian leaders.   Did he appease such leaders in hopes that he could trade concessions to them for a period of peace?  Did he see agreeing with them as “the art of the deal,” recalling his days developing real estate?  Or did he merely enjoy being in a club with leaders who answer to nobody?

Whatever the reason, he clearly believes his superior personal ability to deal with Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi, North Korea’s Kim, Hungary’s Orban and even Israel’s Netanyahu is all that is required for a successful policy.  He now claims that he could solve major conflicts with such autocrats in a single day, though inevitably that would mean accepting their demands.

Trump’s policy is neither deterrence nor peacemaking.  It is disengagement, even in the face of aggressive actions by adversaries.  Pursuing this high-wire personal policy with any success would depend on the fading skills of an aging man.

Trumpism after Trump

 

Gordon L. Weil

We just got a look at what American politics could look like after Donald Trump.

Trump won’t always be at the center of the national debate.  He could lose the election, leaving him to focus on meeting his many legal challenges.  Or he could win, serve his term in office, and depart.  Or, given his age, death or disability could overtake him, allowing Vance to assume power.  But he will go.

Whatever his future, his role over the last nine years raises questions about the future of Trumpism without Trump. Will his policies survive?  Will the Republican Party be dominated by his partisans or will the traditional members he labeled RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – be able to restore their “compassionate conservatism.”

The performance of Ohio Sen. JD Vance in the vice-presidential debate provided useful hints about the post-Trump future, at least for the Republicans and likely for the political world.  Vance’s answers, while displaying the required loyalty to Trump, were notable for smoother packaging. They were important for what they omitted.

On the issues, immigration stood out.  The key issue for Trump when he first ran in 2016, it remains at the center of GOP politics.  Vance repeatedly resorted to unrestricted immigration to explain most of the economic and social problems facing the country.  His answer was not only a sign of Trump loyalty, but his silver bullet solution to winning the election.

Trump had torpedoed a bipartisan bill to begin dealing with the issue, often raised by the Democrats, but that means less to voters than the problem itself.  Underlying opposition to immigrants and immigration is anguish about the coming end of a white majority in America.  Making America “great again” is about stopping, slowing or even denying the inevitable change.

Immigration is sure to be Trump’s legacy.  Difficult to solve, it can become a perennial political focus.  Vance stuck with it, but dodged backing deportation of more than criminal aliens.  Trump is far more sweeping. Vance also avoided racial undertones to his position.  But here as elsewhere, he went along with Trump’s unfounded assertions.

For the Democrats, the personal freedom of women over their own bodies – the abortion issue – remains the keystone of the campaign.  Here, Vance was seemingly contrite. He admitted that his own restrictive position has been rejected by his state’s voters.   He said that his party would have to do better in building trust on the issue.

Contrast his remarks with Trump’s.  The former president keeps shifting his position, trying to lessen the impact of his efforts to topple Roe v. Wade, but he makes ludicrous charges about how Democrats want to kill babies.  Vance looked more reasonable, retreating after the debate to veer right again.  Like Trump, he seeks an impossible position aimed at satisfying both sides.

Media attention has highlighted the civil and coherent debate between Vance and Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee.  They listened to one another and occasionally claimed to find some common ground.  There were no personal attacks or use of degrading nicknames or huge lies, characteristic of Trumpian discourse.  But Vance hewed to his leader’s lines.

Walz entirely boxed him in once. He asked if Vance believed that the 2020 election was stolen, and the senator evaded answering.  In effect, he had to remain loyal to his leader, but managed to refrain from openly supporting him.  Vance obviously shares a Trump-like political vanity. Looking to his own future career, Vance showed himself as more deft than dangerous.

The American government has been almost paralyzed by an unwillingness to compromise between dominant elements within both parties.  Agreement on federal spending has become almost impossible.  In the GOP-dominated House, it’s a matter of “my way or the highway,” sending the American people down that road by an unpopular Congress.

This state of affairs cannot last.  Either the system will be mortally wounded, making authoritarian government quite likely, or traditional majority rule with a role for the minority view must be restored.

This election could be the turning point.  If Trump were to lose and the Democrats gain control of Congress, it could happen now.  Kamala Harris would need to work with responsible Republican leaders.  When the intimidation from Trump possible retaliation fades, senators like Vance might work with the Democrats to achieve workable compromises.

If Trump loses, but the GOP controls Congress, it would be up to Harris and Vance, as a GOP leader, to find a path to compromise.  If Trump wins, congressional Republicans could foresee his influence waning, though they would support his policies.  Of course, it’s possible that an aging Trump might have to give way to Vance at some point.

Whenever Trump leaves the scene, restoring compromise is essential.  Vance may have tried to make it look possible.

 

Polls: An additional note.

I wrote about the adjustments being made and not made to survey data.  Then, The New York Times wrote: “Ms. Harris has since shored up her support among older voters and has begun making inroads among Republicans: 9 percent said they planned to support her, up slightly from 5 percent last month.”

Slightly! An 80 percent increase?   The four percent as a share of the total Trump vote in 2020 is about 2.8 million voters.  That many voters or even a half of them could swing states or put some leaners into doubt.

Big problem with polls; pollsters tinker with data

 

Gordon L. Weil

To ward against underestimating support for Donald Trump, many pollsters adjust their survey findings to increase the influence of how voters say they voted in the last election, according to a report by Nate Cohn, the New York Times chief polling analyst.

According to the report, though the pollsters have their own doubts about the validity of this recall-vote adjustment, they use it to avoid the possibility of badly missing the true outcome.  In short, they try to narrow their possible error and may try not to differ from the herd.

One major defect of the adjustment is that there’s a bias in remembering that you voted for the winner, he says.  But there might also be a bias for “changing” your vote, if the candidate’s later actions cause you to regret how you voted.  In any case, voters may not provide a correct answer.

In effect, the implicit conclusion in making this adjustment is that one election is like another.  With Trump running for a third time, the temptation to reach that conclusion may be great.  And it might be correct.

But what about the possibility that this election is different from most elections?   Kamala Harris is not white and not male.  Those are pretty big differences from the past.

And when the Supreme Court toppled Roe v. Wade, it was like a constitutional amendment.  It not only awakened the opposition of many women, but it raised questions about the meaning of personal freedom.  The issue won’t fade away. 

Texas, with one of the strictest laws in the country, challenged the power of the federal government to order it to save lives, claiming it already had such a requirement. But the legal risks for doctors making the life-and-death decision are so great that many won’t perform abortions. Today, the Supreme Court using its phantom docket (decisions with no reasons given) upheld the Texas position and further fueled the issue.

The abortion issue is likely to bring out women to the ballot box.  They may be more numerous than in the past, and they may recruit others.  A majority of voters are women.

The defection of leading Republicans from Trump, despite having endorsed him eight and four years ago, suggests that the recall-vote adjustment does not apply to them. Perhaps other traditional Republicans will follow them.  We might call this the “Liz Cheney effect,” for which no adjustment is made.

There is a wave of new voter registrations this year, as in Maine, and especially among young voters.  How does the recall-vote adjustment work when the margin of victory in a swing state may be less than the number of new voters? We might call this the “Taylor Swift effect,” for which no adjustment was made.

At the end of his analysis, Cohn writes, “A near repeat of the last presidential election is certainly a plausible outcome. In today’s polarized era, who could possibly be surprised by a repeat in Mr. Trump’s third presidential run?”  He concludes, “But if this election is different, in any direction, this year’s polls might not be able to see it coming.”  The pollsters are not reporting data; they are manipulating it.

Another conclusion may be that the pollsters are more interested in protecting their reputations than in making a serious attempt at understanding the electorate.  They may fail at both.

 

Election too close to call? No, but too hard

 

Gordon L. Weil

“Too close to call.”

That’s the election mantra for the presidential and House elections.  Even the Senate races show some uncertainty.

The notion that these races will come down to the wire is just what the media likes.  It attracts viewers and readers, excites the partisans and keeps political reporters, pundits and pollsters in the public eye. 

Yet the elections may not be too close to call, just impossible to fully understand.  As I have previously suggested, it’s possible that swing voters more than swing states will influence the outcomes.  But it is difficult to foresee how they will react in the next few weeks and even if they will be able to vote and have their votes counted.

The polls forecast the outcome in most states with absolute certainty, given the wide gap between the candidates and state political histories.  That leaves a few states that have shifted from one side to the other recently, often against their traditional leaning.   The focus falls almost entirely on these swing states.

Who are the swing voters that the polls may not be reading well?  

Prime among them are those registering to vote this year for the first time.  They are mostly young people, many having become active since President Biden dropped out.  It’s possible that most of them are reacting to a younger option in the presidential race, a candidate closer to their own lives.

In Maine, new voter registrations are coming at 5,000 a week, big for the state and unprecedented.  This parallels what’s happening in many other states.   Are the polls catching their effect accurately?

Similar to this trend is population movement since the last federal election cycle.  The presence of Democratic activists in The Villages, a Florida haven for faithful Republicans from the Midwest, is newsworthy.  Migration is affecting other southern states like Georgia and Texas.  Maybe these states won’t flip this time, but change is coming.

The increased, active participation of women, whose voting is no longer predictable on the basis of how their husbands vote, will be a major factor influencing the elections.  More women vote than men, and they are generally better educated.  If they turn out as expected, they could change outcomes.  The polls may be mistakenly adjusting downward their impact.

The argument against attributing influence to women is that the surveys show that abortion is not one of the top issues (and that’s probably true for the poorly understood term “reproductive choice”).  But the broader ideal of personal freedom raised by the issue resonates with some voters, and that view may be gaining traction.

Conventional wisdom maintains that the real issue is the economy, and that Kamala Harris trails Donald Trump in ability to deal with it.  That’s not true, though neither has an in-depth understanding of economics.  Their policies consist mainly of pandering to constituencies by offering them subsidies and tax breaks.

The gap between them has almost disappeared.  The biggest signpost about inflation can be seen at the local filling station.  Gasoline prices are falling, sending a clear signal that inflation is down.  Income gains are larger than price increases.  As this realization spreads, the issue may matter less than it did earlier this year.

Much the same is true for immigration.  A serious policy is badly needed from both sides.  Meanwhile, Biden’s action to radically reduce pressure at the border may be having an effect.

But there are bigger problems with the “too close to call” forecast.  The polls treat the character of the candidates as just another issue alongside the economy or immigration.  And they have just begun to focus on age.

Concern about a candidate’s character can override the issues. That’s why many GOP leaders support Harris, with whom they usually disagree.  Trump’s increasingly obvious flaws and the dangers of his presidency matter more to them than the issues.

The effects of aging drove Biden off the ballot.  Are people worried about Trump?  Does the media fail to highlight his gaffes, lacking their persistence in pursuing Biden?  Fox and MSNBC may have their opposing views, but the mainstream media has been slow to raise concerns about Trump’s age.

We can easily be hypnotized by the daily poll reports and the instant analysis of them.  But what seems to be missing is perspective.     

The pundits promote their guesswork to keep people tuned in as if the election is the Presidential Super Bowl.   That alone is a good reason to stay skeptical of campaign experts.

We have no way of knowing if the election is as close as the pundits ceaselessly forecast.  Perhaps the message to be drawn from the polls is not that the election is “too close to call,” but that this election differs so much from others that the race is “too hard to call.”