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.”

Harris could win EV, lose popular vote

 

Gordon L. Weil

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, defeating Hillary Clinton who had been supported by most voters, the National Popular Vote campaign gained momentum.   The similar result in the election of George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000 had laid the groundwork.

The conventional wisdom, appealing to Democrats who are the traditional losers when minority popular vote presidents are elected, is that the electoral vote system favors the Republicans. 

NPV supporters assert that the will of majority should not be ignored, despite the outmoded electoral vote system found in the Constitution.

Based on the compromise that brought the states on board, the presidential election is a collection of elections in the states and D.C.  Because all states are constitutionally guaranteed a minimum of three electoral votes, individual voters in the small, usually rural, states have more voting power than those in larger states. By strict proportionality, small states like Maine might get one electoral vote, which is clearly politically unacceptable.

The National Popular Vote campaign seeks an agreement among states with a majority of electoral votes that their electors will vote for the candidate winning a majority of the sum of the popular votes of all jurisdictions.  With enough participation, that group of states could determine the outcome of the election no matter if others chose not to join.

Today, because of separate state elections, elections focus on the few states where the outcome is not in question.  Thus, the campaigns concentrate on those swing states while taking for granted the result in other states.  With a national popular vote, all individual voters are in play, which should result in a truly national election and a better reflection of the people’s preference.

If National Popular Vote were adopted, this disproportionate weight of voters would largely be solved.   But each state would continue to have its usual number of electoral votes, continuing to tilt the Electoral College somewhat toward small states.

Until now, states with 207 Electoral Votes in 2020 have voted for the NPV.  All of them voted Democratic in that election.  No state that voted Republican has signed on.

For the NPV states to automatically determine the Electoral College winner, additional states with 61 electoral votes would have to support the proposed compact among states.  In 2020, eight states with 86 votes voted Democratic, but have not signed on. 

Not all are likely to accept the NPV.  Among these states are swing jurisdictions – Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Nebraska’s Second District – that had 43 Electoral Votes.  If they do not support NPV, only 43 votes remain among the Democratic-voting jurisdictions, not enough to make NPV a reality.  No GOP state is likely to join.

The conclusion is clear.  The NPV is partisan.  If there were enough NPV states for the Democrats to overcome the supposed GOP Electoral Vote advantage, the Democrats would win without needing the NPV. 

To be sure, the NPV could mean something if expected Democratic states voted for GOP candidates or if some Republican states accepted the NPV.  If this were to happen, a state would accept being bound to a result opposed by a majority of its own citizens.  In theory, NPV makes sense; in practice, it may not.

If the electoral vote and the popular vote more closely coincided, the underlying reason for the NPV would be weakened.  That may be happening this year.

In 2016, Clinton won a substantial majority of the California vote, which helped boost her national popular majority.  Some of her votes there produced no electoral votes for her and were, in effect, “wasted.”

It seems possible that this year, there will be fewer such unneeded votes.  In effect, the gap in swing states between Kamala Harris and Trump could be closer to the national popular vote gap between them.  

Trump may be gaining support in overwhelmingly Democratic California and New York.  He’s also polling better in states that went strongly for Republican congressional candidates in 2022.  But his gains in either case would not earn him more electoral votes, though they would contribute to a narrower national popular vote margin.

At the same time, Harris is doing better than expected in swing states.  While her gains may involve fewer total voters than Trump’s gains in solidly Democratic states, they indicate that she could win the election with a narrow national popular vote margin.

Because this analysis is based on polling of varying quality, these conclusions may be problematic.  And it’s unknown if the polls fairly account for new voters or if some voters will be denied access to the ballot box.

Conventional wisdom has suggested that a Democrat needs to win the national popular vote by a comfortable margin to be sure of winning most electoral votes.  That may not be the case. 

 

Israel-Palestine: Two-state, one-state or war

 

Gordon L. Weil

News reports focus on the presidential election, which both sides warn could have disastrous results. 

But serious attention is just beginning to be paid to the conflict between Israel and the Arab groups backed by Iran that could bring more catastrophic results. 

The ultimate danger of an all-out regional war among nuclear armed states, looms.  And the risk of that Middle East conflict is directly tied to the U.S. presidential election.

The crisis poses a deceptively simple choice.  The outcome of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could be either a one-state solution or a two-state solution.   The disagreement among the key parties – Israel, the Palestinian Arabs and the United States – runs deep. 

Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders prefer a one-state solution – though obviously not the same one.  The U.S. has long favored a two-state solution, consisting of the countries of Israel and Palestine, but has achieved no success and, in fact, now faces a deteriorating situation. 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supposedly wants to endlessly pursue the Arab terrorists to avoid facing a new election that could drive him from power and the criminal charges pending against him.  But this misses the point.  Despite saying what Washington wants to hear about two states, he has always opposed the creation of a Palestinian state. 

He relies on far-right parties that openly favor a single state, but he is not their political captive; he agrees with them.  October 7 and its threat to Israeli security gave Netanyahu the opening to pursue his objectives.  Israel has practically obliterated Gaza and says that Lebanon, the Hezbollah base, is not a true country, so it can be bombed and invaded. 

The Israeli goal appears to be complete control of Palestine including Gaza and the West Bank, which it now occupies. These areas might not be formally incorporated into Israel, to avoid creating an Arab majority there. 

Hamas seeks to eliminate Israel and create a single Palestinian state in the entire territory.  Not an established country like Israel with its formal military, its tool is terrorism – the use of violence, even against civilians, for political purposes.  Hamas and Hezbollah have adopted terrorism as the best way to achieve their political objective. 

While much of the world condemns their terrorism, the Palestinians might see it as helping them.  It’s likely they worried about being overlooked when Saudi Arabia and Israel moved toward cooperation.  October 7 suddenly got everybody’s attention and suspended the Saudi-Israeli plans.  Saudi Arabia now won’t make a deal with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state. 

Netanyahu may see a narrow chance to act before the U.S. presidential election.  He spurns President Biden, whose withdrawal from the presidential race has allowed him and his diplomatic team to focus on trying to achieve a ceasefire.  The Israeli leader may want to gain as much ground as he can before the election decides on his key ally. 

Biden’s options are limited for the moment, because he is avoiding a major policy shift that could damage Kamala Harris’s chances.   If she wins, he will immediately have a freer hand with Israel.  If Trump wins, Netanyahu is likely to keep stalling until his preferred president takes office. 

The American position is based on the belief that the only way to resolve the competing claims of Israel and the Palestinians is through compromise.  The U.S. political system works best when parties reach compromises, but that can only happen when both sides are invested in the success of the system itself. 

That is not the case in the Israel-Palestine confrontation.   Both sides believe that anything less than complete victory is unsatisfactory.   As a result, Israel persists in Gaza, dislikes a ceasefire and has abandoned the hostages held by Hamas. It also explains why no matter their losses, Hamas and Hezbollah will not quit.  Defeat may serve to recruit more followers for them. 

Not far below the surface of this war is the Israel-Iran confrontation. They are bitter enemies.  Israel is a nuclear power, and Iran is not far from it.  And, as the chief arms supplier of Russia, it might be paid off by gaining access to Putin’s tactical nuclear weapons.  The current clashes could be the prelude to a dangerous, regional conflict with unknown limits. 

Until November 5, domestic politics may limit the ability of the U.S. to exert its full force in the region.  Biden is right to keep up as much pressure as possible until then.  With more room to move after the election, he should deploy the political, diplomatic and military power of the U.S. to force the Gaza ceasefire that is the essential first step to pursuing a two-state compromise. 

The time approaches when the U.S. must put its interests first and act as a great power.

Trump, the would-be autocrat, gets Supreme Court backing

 

Gordon L. Weil

What does Donald Trump want to do with the presidency?

He makes his intentions clear, though less clear is whether he can turn his plans into reality.  Kamala Harris describes him as “unserious,” but cautions that voters ought to consider as “serious” the risks of his presidency.

Trump favors a strong presidency, enjoying powers he can exercise with little or no control by Congress and with the expected support of his Supreme Court majority.  His next term, if he gets it, could look a lot like authoritarian government.

One indicator is his obvious affinity for leaders who bear the title of president, but who exercise strong or total control of their national governments.  He almost fraternally refers to Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi and North Korea’s Kim.  In fact, he likes their style and their complete freedom of action.

The presidential system of government places elected presidents, serving fixed terms, at the head of the executive branch alongside legislative bodies that cannot readily remove them, but can limit their powers.  In parliamentary systems, the legislative bodies control and can remove the top executive, usually the prime minister.  

In the U.S. system, the checks on a president are a key element of democracy.  The contrast between democratic balance and the authoritarian rule of false presidents is obvious. 

Independent ranking systems are surely not absolutely correct, but they offer strong signals that prove the point. Britain’s Economist Intelligence Unit ranks countries by their degree of democracy.  Among the counties ranked as being “full democracy,” almost all in this category have parliamentary systems.

The U.S. presidential system is rated in the “flawed democracy” group, which also includes India, Poland and Hungary.  America gets a high rating for “electoral process,” but a weak rating for “functioning of government.”  There’s also an “authoritarian” group, which includes Russia, China and North Korea, operating as one-party states.

Trump plans to use his governmental powers to pursue the political enemies he calls “vermin,” expel millions of migrants, and deploy the military to carry out his policies.  Sounds like an autocrat.

His extreme departure from national norms leads conservative Republicans, who may like his policies on the economy and immigration, to endorse Harris with whom they may disagree on the issues.  She is simply safer.

In the White House, Trump would be likely to do whatever pleases the right-wing constituency that put him in office.  Although he honestly reports that he has not read the 887-page Project 2025 blueprint, he is likely to follow its right-wing manifesto.  He has little of his own policy, but depends heavily on outside, conservative advocates.

Under its terms, the Justice Department and the FBI would be bought firmly under his control.  The Education Department would be abolished, and the Federal Reserve brought under  greater political control.  No agency would be missed.

Trump would be able to take control of the government.  Though the president is supposed to be constrained by Congress, it has failed to do its job.  It delegates much of its power to executive agencies.  The Senate is often unable to act, thanks to its rules allowing decisions to be blocked by a minority of senators.

The Supreme Court’s July decision, aptly named Trump v. United States, gave the president almost complete immunity from legal scrutiny for all but his most personal actions. And who gets to decide if his actions are presidential or personal?  The Supreme Court, now dominated by his allies.

This decision does more for placing the presidency above Congress and the states than any other event in American history.  It could easily mean that limits no longer exist on a president using the military for domestic, political purposes.

Congress, because it is ineffective except in doling out benefits and increasing the debt, and the Court, because it has become so obviously partisan, have become quite unpopular.  The unfavorable rating of Congress has reached 76 percent, and it is 51 percent for the Supreme Court. 

The remaining option for controlling presidential excess is impeachment and conviction.  But impeachment has become mere political routine, and conviction continues to be impossible and ineffective. 

Trump covets unlimited power, which no president of either party is meant to have.  The pathway to unchecked presidential power has been paved by the Supreme Court’s decision.  The evidence is that it intended to achieve this result before the election.  That leaves the decision to the voters.

The Court’s Roe v. Wade decision on abortion established policy in the absence of congressional action.   Trump v. U.S. did so as well.  As Roe shows, Court decisions can be reversed.  Congress can remove the Court’s jurisdiction, but seldom does.  Presidents can reshape the Court by their appointments.

A political movement pushed the reversal of Roe v. Wade.  A similar effort should now demand the reversal of Trump v. U.S.

 

 

When shootings happen, there are rules

Ten Rules for Assassinations/Shootings/Attempts

Gordon L. Weil

Assassinations and shootings are as big as it gets, but they do not bring out the best in us.

Politicians and media select from this menu or use it all in the aftermath of shootings.  This checklist may look like the event is being taken seriously, as it should, but nothing changes.  More bluster, more shootings.

1.  Charges are made that the security people failed to detect the shooter when they should have.

 2.  Motive for shooting unknown.

3.  Season opens for unlimited speculation and free-lance blame assignment.

4.  Shooter was alone, often promptly killed, making answer to 2. more difficult.

5.  Shooter had blog with threats or kept a diary, but was usually ignored as being “odd”.

6.  Matter under investigation, report to come after we forget/care about the incident.

7.  Law enforcement agencies are cooperating, but each gets equal press conference access.

8.  Some authority somewhere had been warned sometime about the shooter.

9.  Shooter obtained gun legally; calls made for tougher laws.

10. Nothing happens. Wait for next event - but not very long. Restart at 1. above.

  

Harris' biggest campaign event; Trump's 'best'?

 

Gordon L. Weil

The debate revealed a split between the presidential candidates going beyond their differences on the issues.

At several points, Kamala Harris directly addressed viewers, reaching beyond the limits of the ABC debate set.  Donald Trump, expected to be on offense but finding himself mostly on defense, never left the limits of the debate.

After the war of words, Trump told the media, “It was the best debate I’ve ever had.”  That may be a case of wishful thinking or an attempt at campaign spin. But that statement amounted to his giving himself a grade on his performance.  He was telling the voters that this was him at his best.

The presidential election is held in each state for its electoral votes.   Trump played to his core backers in the belief that he had locked up safe states and could raise doubts about Harris in the swing states.  Of course, Harris has her own safe states, but she was reaching for voters in both swing states and on Trump’s own turf.

It’s all about electoral math. Just below the surface of the presidential election lies a politically deadly force that could pick the winner despite the will of the people.

This forecast is not merely a possibility; it is a certainty.   When the votes are counted on and after November 5, the outmoded Electoral College will determine the winner, no matter the popular vote.

The practical effect of the Electoral College is that the Democratic candidate for president must win by much more than a slim majority in the national popular vote.  If Harris leads by one or two percent in the polls, that’s probably not enough.  She needs more than a national squeaker to be assured of enough support across enough states to prevail.

The reverse is true for the Republican candidate.  They may win less than a majority of the vote nationally, but still be elected.  This seems to be an iron law: every time since 1824 when there has been a minority winner, the victor was a Republican.  Trump can win with less than a popular majority, as he did in 2016.

While a narrow national margin either way may mean a Trump victory, Harris can win by carrying swing states, and she can win big by taking one or two safe Trump states.  If she trails in swing states, even while winning the national popular majority, Trump’s electoral vote could overrule her majority.

So, Harris had to accept the electoral math and tried to turn the debate to her national advantage.  For her, it was not so much a debate as a way to talk directly with swing voters all across the country.  For Trump, it was a matter of reinforcing his hold on his MAGA core and raising doubts about Harris with other Republicans and possibly with independents. 

She stuck to her case and often avoided answering some moderators’ questions.  She needled him. He boldly asserted untruths, knowing there was not enough time to refute them all.  He was so intent on his false claims, some of them wild, that he failed to successfully link her to President Biden.

Whatever the points the candidates thought they scored in the debate format, Harris sought to use it as her only national campaign stop.  In what was clearly the best answer given by either candidate, she forcefully laid out the case for reproductive freedom for women.  This was an attempt to reach voters in all states.  If successful, she could overcome the electoral math.

The effect of the Electoral College can only be defeated in one way – turnout.  Motivated voters showing up to vote can undermine the implicit assumptions about the way states will decide. 

When voter turnout is unexpectedly high, it can upset what polling forecasts.  A surge in support for a candidate might overturn the expected outcome, flipping the electoral math.  This might occur in both the swing states and in supposedly safe states.  Momentum can make swings happen anywhere.

The debate was Harris’s chance to recover her momentum and Trump’s chance to block it.  If she rekindled enthusiasm for her candidacy, the debate could have helped her in swing states, but also to reach into Trump’s supposedly safe states.  It seems less likely that Trump could have loosened her hold on her safe states.

If one party invades the other party’s safe states, then a voter anywhere can make a difference.  That’s possible this year, because Trump may have peaked, leaving Harris nowhere to go but up.

Growing enthusiasm helps boost momentum.  Watch the number of small contributions; they reflect that enthusiasm.  Also, the surge in voter registration may be a positive sign for either candidate.

Will there be another debate?  It could help either candidate, but in hugely different ways.