Even though I no longer watch football, I’m a big believer in not spiking the ball until you cross the goal line. History is overrun with people who’ve measured the drapes, cleared off space for a trophy on their shelf, and spent bonus money they were going to be paid when they won something, only to see it slip away when the clock hit double zero. Ask President Thomas E. Dewey how his first-term went. Jumping the gun might be a part of human nature we can’t control, but it’s important to remember that no one, not even overpaid, perfectly coiffured pundits, have any idea what’s going to happen when the last vote is counted, no matter how insistent they are when they say they do.
I bring this up because the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Joe Biden up by 14 points over President Donald Trump after the first debate. “Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee, leads the president, 53% to 39%, among registered voters in the new poll, which was conducted in the two days following the debate,” the Journal reported.
A couple of thoughts about this. First, it may well be the case that Biden is coasting, literally, to victory. No single candidate has ever been more assaulted by the media than President Trump. Billions of dollars in negative ads over four years in the form of “news” reports are the largest in-kind donation in political history. It’s only natural that a Democrat would be the beneficiary of that. And while the media has always favored Democrats, the searing hatred of Donald Trump the man, coupled with a major leftward lurch by the media, created a Mt. Everest of activism disguised as journalism that is nearly impossible to overcome. But if anyone can overcome it, Donald Trump can.
Second, the poll was of registered voters. Polls of registered voters aren’t as accurate as those of likely voters. There’s really no reason not to do polls of likely voters at this point, except registered voter polls are cheaper and easier to turn around quickly. Registering to vote is easy. Tens of millions more Americans register than bother to vote every election cycle, so while it’s better than just a poll of Americans, it doesn’t tell you who is going to actually show up and vote. That’s kind of important when trying to predict the outcome of an election, which makes it more curious why anyone would bother to do a poll without attempting to separate out those who you can be relatively certain will vote.
Third, and I don’t mention this to give anyone a sense of confidence because I believe this is going to be a tough fight to very end, but on October 16, 2016, Hillary Clinton held a 14 point lead over Donald Trump in the exact same poll.
The Access Hollywood tape had just dropped, Clinton was getting the glowing press Democrats are used to, and Trump had been declared by the media to have lost the debates up to that point. The race was over, the queen needed only to wait for November the 8th to make it official.
“Hillary Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump by double digits with just over three weeks until Election Day, according to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted entirely after the second presidential debate,” NBC reported.
The game was over, only formalities remained. Just no one told the American people in swing states who had different ideas.
Which brings us to point four: national polls don’t matter.
You’d think the media would know this after crusading to eliminate the Electoral College due to Hillary’s loss, but they don’t act like it. The left wants to create an impression of inevitability of their victory in the public, and numbers, they think, will help do that. It didn’t work out for Hillary, but when your old bag of tricks only has so many things in it, you get a lot of repeats.
No one knows what’s going to happen on November 3rd, no matter what any poll says. The louder people scream about polls the more worried they are about the end result. Just ask President Hillary Clinton.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.