From the WaPo article:When was the last time a major paper declared its own poll an "outlier"? https://t.co/1rOPfmuBYl
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) September 24, 2023
The Post-ABC poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier....
We're told in the second paragraph, that "more than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than the president."
Much further down in the piece, amid a discussion of all the criminal charges, it says Trump is "favored by 54 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents." I have to restate those numbers: only 36 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents prefer an alternative to Trump, and 60-something percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents prefer an alternative Biden.This is also interesting. Only 53 percent of Americans say those criminal charges against Trump mean that he "is being held accountable like others," and 58 percent of Americans say the impeachment inquiry against Biden show him "being held accountable like others." 40 percent say Trump is being "unfairly victimized by political opponents" while only 32 percent say Biden is "being unfairly victimized by political opponents."
Meanwhile, 56 percent of Americans say they disapprove of Biden's performance in office and only 49 percent say they disapprove of what Trump did when he was in office. Only 15 percent say they are better off than before Biden became President.
Americans who didn't vote — about 15 percent of the sample of registered voters — favored Trump over Biden, 63 percent to 27 percent. In the group that did vote, Trump is still ahead 50 percent to 45 percent. The inclusion of so many nonvoters is held up a reason why the poll could be an outlier. By the way, I was a nonvoter in 2020. I like to go to the poll in person, and it was Covid time, so I left it to my fellow Americans to choose the President.
That was a strange election, with so many people voting remotely, and that poll says "Only 60 percent say they believe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020." That's many millions doubting that the process worked. Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy? They've limited themselves to demonizing Trump, and that hasn't worked.
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“Americans who didn't vote — about 15 percent of the sample of registered voters — favored Trump over Biden, 63 percent to 27 percent.”
Should be rephrased as “Americans who KNOWINGLY didn’t vote…” Plenty of them probably did have their votes counted - just for Biden, and not for Trump.
If it didn’t serve their purpose they’d bin it. Motivate their side, push him out, whatever. There’s a purpose…
…there’s the elation of Trump and 91 felonies and the rallying cry that you need to be more obnoxious at work with your Democrat/Biden hating friends…
If Trump keeps focused on policy, rebutting the Green Dream and staying moderate on abortion, he'll rise in the polls. That's a big "if", though.
One of the funniest polls was one done of Georgia, after the election, of voters, and they were asked for who they cast their votes, and Trump won the poll by a wide margin.
Come on aboard the Trump train, they want us divided because that's the only way they can beat us. They can't defeat Trump without you.
I'm surprised the Washington Post did not ignore the poll in line with its stated goal the "Democracy die[] in Darkness."
The wrestler (Jesse Ventura?) Became Governor of Minnesota shortly I moved away from there. Pollsters and Poli Sci profs were asked why they completely failed to predict the outcome. Answer: in early polling one of the first questions was whether people intended to vote or not. Those who said no were not polled again, and they voted overwhelmingly for the wrestler.
Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy? They've limited themselves to demonizing Trump, and that hasn't worked.
As we all know, what they've done instead of even defending the process changes they demanded and pushed through, much less actually improving those processes so that we could believe in a result that arises from them, has been to demonize not just Trump but everyone who has questioned the 2020 election.
Does it matter, though? As long as they can get the result they want - power via election, however questionable the election might be - they can claim the mantle of democracy. And I do believe they did what they did in 2020 for what appeared to them to be good and moral reasons: to protect people from COVID, and (for some of them) to protect THE people from Trump. With Trump still in it in 2024, they'll be able to apply that same reasoning: the people, left to their own devices, might make a bad, even a terrible decision - we have to prevent that outcome at any cost.
This early in the election cycle, "any cost" already appears to be criminalizing formerly lawful behavior and attempting to control news and social media platforms so that the tenor of reporting is the way they want it. What's it going to morph into, if Trump continues to gain ground?
Just as C.S. Lewis said. Once you start down that path of justifying your actions as "for someone else's good," you can justify anything.
Conservatives aren't just vaguely mean people who only think about the holy Bottom Line. We are people who try not to fool ourselves into believing that human nature - including our own - is something it's not.
WHO are you Going To Believe? Our Editorial Staff? Or our own lying poll?
Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy?
I’d like “Questions That Answer Themselves” for $500, Alex.
Astute observation about the Dems concentrating on demonizing Trump as opposed to strengthening the process of honest voting. I don't like feeling this in my heart of hearts but Dem party leadership prefers to keep the opportunities to cheat the vote wide open. Just last week, the PA governor declared that if one signs up for a driver's license , a person is registered to vote. Why isn't a voting change like that up to the state legislature to vote on? The Dems did so much cheating during Covid that they are addicted to it worse than ever. Ha, yeah, like Joe Biden, the addled white man, got 81 million votes...more than Barack Obama and more than Hillary who were groundbreaking "firsts".
" more than 3 in 5 Democrats... and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than the president."
For the last ~2 decades, public schools have been graduating over half of public school kids that are functionally illiterate and totally innumerate. Hardly anyone can tell you what 3 in 5 actually represents.
WAPO cant believe their constant gas-lighting is not more effective
FOX played some sound of Democrat legislators in DC, being asked "is the boarder open?" Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said, paraphrasing...'what you see at the border is NOT a representation of what is actually happening.'
And +60% of Baltimore schools students not proficient in math and reading
And Democrat hell holes under leadership of black lead police, prosecutors, mayors, are not the responsibility Black Democrat policies and choices.
Sounds like people are starting to wonder if the hell they are living in, is a result of the politicians they blindly follow into their own creation.
Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security
We all know the answer to that.
If you accept that polling has any validity, than this outlier in a way gives the clearest picture of all. That’s because, as we all know, liberals band together in a small number of urban areas so that they squander millions of votes by running up the score in these few areas. As a result, if Trump and Biden are in a dead heat, then Trump is way ahead in votes that matter.
The questions are how, who, and when.
How do they remove Joe from office and avoid having to make Kamala the front runner for Presidential nominee?
Who else do they have that they can slip in there? Someone who's not currently running a major state so badly it's the brunt of national jokes.
When do they do this? Now? Before it gets too close to election time? Or later, right before the election, pulling out the rug from Joe and Kamala and inserting a close friend of Obama.
How, who, and when. Trump will kill Biden. For that matter, so would DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy. The Dems know this and they are about to start freaking out about it.
the people, left to their own devices, might make a bad, even a terrible decision - we have to prevent that outcome at any cost.
This is the precise reason why the Electoral College was invented. you know, the thing the Democrats hate so much.
Bruce Hayden said...
Should be rephrased as “Americans who KNOWINGLY didn’t vote…” Plenty of them probably did have their votes counted - just for Biden
I wonder if Professor Althouse still thinks she didn't vote?
Anything that cannot continue forever will stop. If all else fails, get ready for another Jan 6 from the inside - anything is possible to stop Trump and his followers.
The preparation has begun. If Trump runs, it looks right now like he will win. First they will stop him from running, then they will stop him from winning, then they will stop him from serving. The question is whether they are competent and far sighted enough to succeed in this. What do you think?
Now that is one fantastic headline. I guffawed.
Fake poll. The left want Trump v Biden.
Hey boss. The poll results are in.
Good, what do they show.
Trump would win.
Nonsense.
What do we do?
Either s**t can the poll or explain away the results.
We spent a lot on the poll.
OK find a way to say our own poll is crap and Trump will lose.
Biden barely scraped out a win despite winning independents by almost double digits. That's not a good place to be. Then, rather than tacking to the middle, his administration went hard left in order to appease their base. Now, those same independents have abandoned him. They were willing to give him a chance in 2020, and he blew it.
Thank you Ann Althouse for the great post. I'm sure the MSM thinks they just need to gaslight harder to make everyone appreciate the benefits of food, energy, and rent being 20% more expensive since Biden took office (Unemployment is down! Stock market up! What more do you peons want?)
Initially I did not believe the election was stolen, but now I do. If you look into the disbarment trial of John Eastman (one of Trump's attorneys, very different from Giuliani or Sidney Powell), a lot of issues are being brought up that are eye opening and disturbing. Someone named Rachel Alexander is covering this. If you look into it you will be astounded.
If it's Trump v Biden - the corruptocrats got this.
chill out, man.
Translation: You, our dear readers whom we do not in any way want to upset by telling you something you don't want to hear, are free to ignore the findings of this poll if they violate your preferred understanding of reality.
"Our poll is an outlier" sounds to me like whistling past the graveyard.
"Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy?"
I sure hope this is one of those Socratic method questions you law professors do.
The preparation has begun. If Trump runs, it looks right now like he will win. First they will stop him from running, then they will stop him from winning, then they will stop him from serving. The question is whether they are competent and far sighted enough to succeed in this. What do you think?
They aren't. My guess is that they'll push hard on the lawfare, hoping to use a conviction as an excuse to keep him off the ballot. It will backfire, hopefully spectacularly.
How do they remove Joe from office and avoid having to make Kamala the front runner for Presidential nominee?
Who else do they have that they can slip in there? Someone who's not currently running a major state so badly it's the brunt of national jokes.
When do they do this? Now? Before it gets too close to election time? Or later, right before the election, pulling out the rug from Joe and Kamala and inserting a close friend of Obama.
How, who, and when. Trump will kill Biden. For that matter, so would DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy. The Dems know this and they are about to start freaking out about it.
The ideal situation would be to get Joe to announce that he's withdrawing from the '24 race due to family and health issues. Then you'll see Newsom, the NM gov, and probably a few others jump in. Barring that, you'd want to wait until Joe has the nomination locked up, and then just sort it out at the convention. Can't do it after the convention, as there would likely be a huge battle between Harris and whomever they want in the top spot.
I agree that Trump is looking like the favorite, but disagree about the others. Any other Republican has the problem of how to win OH and IA, both of which went to the Dems in '08 and '12. I don't think that DeSantis or Haley would be able to pull the kind of numbers Trump has in those states. They'd end up winning AZ and GA only to still lose the election.
Why haven’t they strengthened election integrity? Some say eliminating cheating would severely damage their prospects and obviously the Democrats have decided to oppose any and all efforts to validate the vote knowing Big Media will continue to pretend there’s no fraud even though voters strongly believe that there is.
Americans who didn't vote — about 15 percent of the sample of registered voters — favored Trump over Biden, 63 percent to 27 percent. In the group that did vote, Trump is still ahead 50 percent to 45 percent. The inclusion of so many nonvoters is held up a reason why the poll could be an outlier.
In 2020, 80 million Americans - roughly 33% - did not vote. About a third of those were not registered, meaning about 22% of registered voters did not vote. So if the WaPo/ABC poll only included 15% that didn't vote in 2020, it is either not an outlier, or is an outlier in the other direction and isn't favoring Trump by enough.
Maybe I missed it before, but is this the first time Ann has disclosed she didn’t vote in 2020?
Ah the strange Democracy dies in Darkness! Is it a motto? A declaration? A battle plan? Yes. Yes it is.
NY governor overrides voters and goes for mail in voting. Maybe ballots printed in Portuguese, Chinese, Persian, Pashto...?
Dave, she has disclosed not voting before.
The problem with lying is that liars tend to forget their lies or why they were lying. They eventually lie to allies and lie to themselves and end up alone, fighting, and hated. They anti-Trump coalition sold their souls and morals to defeat Trump...they are mostly vacant, self-deluded psychos now.
In power.
Working as a team.
This is a much more dangerous era than the US vs. USSR Cold War.
Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy? Because it would be against their interests.
@Dave Begley, first time I've seen it mentioned so openly that I recall too, and seems consistent with the more common implication that she voted for neither Trump or Biden in 2020.
Maybe I missed it before, but is this the first time Ann has disclosed she didn’t vote in 2020?
She clearly stated that she could not vote for Biden after his repeated lies about Chancellorsville.
It goes without saying that she would never vote for Trump.
Althouse writes, "Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy? They've limited themselves to demonizing Trump, and that hasn't worked."
I'm not fond of the word demonize or its derivatives. It's far too commonly used to be trustworthy. Nevertheless a good question. Why talk about Trump as if he has more than a snowball's chance in Hell of winning when the Democrats have such an outstanding record of service and achievement to run on?
Quaestor has an Emily Litella moment, and regains his composure.
In point of fact, the Democrats have never treated Donald Trump as a worthy competitor. Their entire approach from the moment he decided to run for office their tactics have been confined to ridicule and vilification. There isn't a single instance in more than eight years of a respectful challenge based on a counterproposal. For example, Trump suggests building a barrier, he called it a wall for brevity's sake, along the southern border to help control the illegal flow of migrants, contraband, criminals, and quite possibly terrorists across that entirely undefended boundary.
Their entire response has always been to call him stupid, evil, or stupid and evil without ever acknowledging the very serious and by now catastrophic problem. I cannot recall a single case of a Democrat supporting the fact that such crossings are contrary to national law and criminal, even now when several high-profile Democrats have publicly complained about it but without using truthful adjectives. They always frame their rhetoric as if the deluge is even comparable to the lawful and selective process the United States has had in place for more than a century. When it comes to stupidity, insulting Trump over his ideas to impose effective control on our borders without even admitting the borders need radically improved control ranks near the top of the list. Was there anyone working in the Democrats' strategy office (assuming they have one) with enough brains to realize they insulted the voters far more than Trump through such tactics? Evidently not. Who would dare after Hillary's suicidal "basket of deplorables" remark? All she accomplished was to prove two fatal truths about her character, that she was too stupid to realize alienating people is no way to win their approval, and too arrogant not to assume she'd get away with it.
So here we have Biden and the entire Democratic bench-warming squad (minus He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) repeating the same foolish tactics that turned Hillary into history's most comical Chardonnay abuser.
" more than 3 in 5 Democrats... and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than the president."
No problemo, because more than 5 in 3 ballots will be voting for him.
Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy?
Just guessing here, it I suspect it’s because of how badly their hard left policies impact ordinary Americans and how certain the party leadership is that they’d absorb not just a loss of Presidency, but a generational loss down the ticket without ballot box stuffing.
They've limited themselves to demonizing Trump, and that hasn't worked.
It would have worked just fine, except Biden is so bad that the voters prefer the demon.
@Dave Begley, she told us in the lead-up to Election Day, and in a post on Election Day.
Election security?
The corrupt left want full access to their Chicago cheat machine.
>Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security...?<
That's a really tough one; let me think about it for awhile...
The poll is probably designed to serve another purpose than the usual one of propping up Democrat spirit and depress Republican spirit. In short, it is probably designed to ease Biden out of the race.
Yes, it is an outlier, but purposely designed to be so. Just being even with Trump is already a bad signal for Biden because it means the cheating will have to be even more extensive in 2024.
"They've limited themselves to demonizing Trump, and that hasn't worked."
It hasn't? Democrats just flipped a New Hampshire seat in district Trump won. Democrats are outperforming their 2020 election results by 10-points in recent special elections.
Where hasn't "demonizing" the multiply-indicted guy who repeatedly made gross comments wanting to bang his own daughter worked? In the polls that predicted a big 2022 Red Wave?
As a reference, here's Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine assuring us that we shouldn't be freaked out about one bad, outlier, ABC/Washington Post poll:
What, me worry?
Same poll, but in May of this year. Trump +6.
"Maybe I missed it before, but is this the first time Ann has disclosed she didn’t vote in 2020?"
Please. Try to keep up.
Hey, we’re just throwing shit up against a wall for our intellectually superior glitterati! They like it!
This [to keep the American people from making a huge mistake] is the precise reason why the Electoral College was invented. you know, the thing the Democrats hate so much.
Indeed! But the way the Electoral College was set up allows for the possibility that, say, a "demagogue" can win, if her popularity is sufficient to overwhelm the "heat sink" capacity of the EC. In effect, it acknowledges a limit to the degree of "tyranny of the elite" that's permissible in a system that's trying to be fair.
That's not what Democrats in leadership and the media have been trying to do since at least 2016. They've acknowledged no limits on their desire to "keep people from making a mistake" - denying them information, mischaracterizing information they do receive so that it's increasingly difficult or impossible to tell what is a fact and what is spin, interfering with their political contributions, shaming them into silence, accusing them of moral heinousness, and perhaps in some places even overcoming their will expressed through their votes through ballot fraud.
And now, the new "pre-election fortification" effort includes indicting the former president and his legal advisors for questioning the election results and locking up citizen protesters for protesting on that subject. All in service of preventing the poor benighted public from making the same mistake twice. I suppose it's a lot easier to "demonize" an already cowed and half-blind people than to demonstrate that your inescapably questionable behavior is in fact defensible.
I've been thinking about that book Nudge. I haven't read it; I suppose I need to, to find out what they - the Obama administration were big fans, if I recall - were contemplating back in 2009 as appropriate means for the government to persuade the public to behave in prescribed ways.
This was before Trump went public with a moderated position on abortion which will ease a great many worried, female minds.
If he can get that message through the media screen and the absolutists in the pro-life tribe will show that they know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em it might be enough to beat the fraud.
This is a not-so-subtle hint by the CIA to get out.
During most of my lifetime electing either of these two guys would have been unthinkable.
Given the choice between an intemperate, egomaniacal old prick and a senile, manipulable crook, I'll take the prick every time.
Another Biden term and the destabilization of the republic will be complete.
"Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy?"
Please, no, not back to the why, oh, why questions. They've been blessedly absent for a while.
Anyway, election security hurts Dem power (no more vote harvesting, no more late-night counts in deep-blue cities, the horor) and confidence in democracy hurts "our democracy."
the democrats have not yet begun to cheat.
81 million votes my ass.
there is no such thing as a fair election in this country.
The run by Biden in 2000 was a sick joke, as is his presidency. His run over the next year will be a sick joke told by an insane person.
Four things are coming together to explain the poll:
(1) The Democrats seem to be making it pretty clear that Biden will be their nominee again, and Trump is running away with the nomination on the Republican side. I suspect that a lot of people who had been responding “undecided” to Trump vs. Biden polls in the desperate hope that one or both would disappear, are selecting the lesser of two evils. Especially if they were economically better off in 2019 than they are today. (It has not escaped my notice that by answering “Trump” instead of “undecided” the people appalled by the thought of Trump vs. Biden might imagine that they are helping make Biden go away.)
(2) Despite the best efforts of the Democrats and the news media to push the “no evidence” line, McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry is convincing people that there really is evidence that Joe Biden really did take bribes. How much money was funneled to Joe Biden through son Hunter and the raft of shell companies to make snoopy Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin go away? Because, “Son of a bitch!” Joe Biden is on video boasting about how he made Shokin go away.
(3) The Robert Menendez indictment makes it clear that corruption in the Democrat goes deeper than just President Biden.
(4) Cabinet members like Granholm, Garland, Buttigieg, and Cardona make it clear that they despise ordinary Americans and view us with contempt. They wouldn’t be that outspoken in their contempt if the President didn’t feel that way, too.
"Only 15 percent say they are better off than before Biden became President."
And that was after a year of global pandemic, government crushing jobs and forcing people into solitary confinement.
Oh, and (5) every time Joe Biden touts “Bidenomics” the people in the middle class think about what Biden’s inflation has done to their economic security.
Blogger Dave Begley said...
"Maybe I missed it before, but is this the first time Ann has disclosed she didn’t vote in 2020?"
Seriously? Do you read the comments by others?
Elections are now decided by ballots not votes.
What's the difference?
When you go to vote, you show intention, and you make the decision yourself in the booth.
Even with vote by mail, in theory this is the case, but it makes it easier to vote even if you're not strongly motivated.
But when you allow ballot harvesting, this changes everything. Someone comes to your house, sits down with you while you fill in your ballot. You don't think there is some subtle but strong peer pressure to a. fill in the ballot b. fill it in the way the door knocker prefers?
Then they get collected and dropped by the thousands into a ballot box.
Now, they used to pay people to register votes by the registration card...we'd take the GOP ones back to get paid, and put the Dem ones in a mail box.
But start thinking about ballots. The Dem operative who has an easy job in a dense city apartment blocks...will they drop the GOP voter ballot into the box? or
"lose it?" I don't know. Will the voter be embarrassed and just vote Dem to please that nice young man/woman? I don't know. Here's the scary part: do the volunteers ever "help" fill in the ballot? Do they ever check voting rolls and know someone hasn't voted in 2-3 elections and then...just does it for them?
We have examples of all of the above already happening. Brain dead people voting. Ballots all filled in the same writing. Homeless registered at churches...are you sure they signed the ballot application? Are you sure they signed the ballot? Did they fill it in even?
In the early 80's, not that long ago, Illinois had a huge voter fraud ring busted. Why would you think that stopped then? No other crimes "stopped" in human history.
The Washington Post (and ABC too) disparaged their poll because they disapprove of the respondents’ answers.
The general problem with "cunning" plans is that they often blow up in your face--which is exactly what happened to Hilary Clinton in 2016, when she and the entire media bubble were so sure that if they had Trump as their opponent they'd win big. I would not be surprised if they ran the same play again, for the same reasons, with the same results.
(Possibly relevant: Our "intelligence" agencies also seem addicted to "cunning" plans that blow up in their [well, actually OUR] faces: providing a place to stay for 2 of the 911 highjackers because surely they'll become double agents for us in Al-Quaed; not checking up on the Tsarnaevs because their uncle was "the oil minister in waiting" if Chechnya became independent [yes, cuckoo for coco-puffs crazy idea]; f-ing around with exotic parasites that can't ever get loose from Plum Island or a biolab in Wisconsin and--oops!--Lyme disease; "Hey! Let's pay China to do biological weapons research in their Wuhan lab but we'll be spying on them--what could possibly go wrong?")
Today an outlier, tomorrow the vanguard.
tim maguire,
Your comment @7:22 brings up a point I really haven't seen any of the "gerrymander" opponents address properly. If districts are to be anything like "compact and contiguous" (and many already are neither; cf. MD), it's perfectly possible to (re)district a state anyway you care to and still end up with an (R) state senate despite a fair (D) majority in the state. In fact, it's nearly inevitable, unless you do a ferocious amount of wriggling that itself could be called gerrymandering. Take WI, which has a few districts that are very Democratic, and a remainder of the state that is, basically, very mildly Republican. How do you break that into districts without there being an (R) majority?
It's complicated, also, by the fact that Milwaukee lends itself to the creation of "majority-minority" districts, as do many large cities across the country. But pulling just as many minorities into a district as will satisfy the rule, without "bleaching" surrounding districts overmuch and still keeping to the "compact and contiguous" idea is damn near impossible.
You are right: Most "gerrymandering" is mainly a function of where people live and in what proportions. I do believe there are some R shenanigans involved (when haven't there been?), but it's the basic demographic distribution that makes the problem intractable.
If Trump somehow manages to win in 2024, the Bidens will refuse to vacate the Whitehouse. DC streets will be full of armed soldiers and razor wire, and the Washington Post will be running front page editorials explaining how it would "destroy our democracy" were Trump to be let back in.
"Why haven't Democrats tried to strengthen election security and build confidence in democracy?"
To ask the question, is to answer it.
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