Polls, Florida, Trump, and the black vote
Polls in Florida can be used to illustrate the idea that Trump is staging a huge comeback, or that he’s hopelessly behind. There’s one that says he’s doing pretty well there (2 points ahead of Hillary) and two others that put him far behind her in a cloud of dust (losing by 9 and 14 points).
So, what’s a person to think? As I’ve said before, the best predictors are poll averages over time. And the averages get even more predictive as one gets closer to voting day, although averages over time will tell you the general trends. The poll showing Trump doing well in Florida is somewhat of an outlier at the moment, and only time will tell if it’s the beginning of a new and possibly meaningful trend back to a competitive race there. Till then, it will function as something that Trump supporters cite in order to shore up the Trump troops.
One of the most interesting results of the Florida poll showing Trump ahead is that it also shows him as having 20% support among black voters. But it’s always good to look more closely at what a figure like that actually represents, and how large the black sample was. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to locate the most detailed report of the poll, but this piece says that it questioned 1200 likely voters. If we’re trying to figure out how many black voters were queried, let’s be very generous and say it might have been 15%, which would have been 180. Twenty percent of 180 is 36. So, that would mean that 36 black people in the poll said they would vote for Trump (and the number would have been even smaller, if less than 15% of the poll respondents were black).
You can see that we’re dealing with a large margin of error here for reporting on the black voters, because of the small numbers involved. That’s true of a lot of polls, as it turns out.
One more thing. People assume that 20% would be an awful lot of black support for the Republican, if it were true. And I agree it would be impressive, although I’m not at all sure it’s true (and it is an outlier result compared to the trend of other polls on Trump’s black support, but let’s put that aside for the purposes of this discussion). In articles I’ve seen that discuss this new Florida poll and the 20%, the figure used for Florida comparisons is Obama’s 95% to 4% showing in Florida among that group. But that seems entirely the wrong comparison to me, because Hillary Clinton is not Obama—in many senses, but what’s particularly relevant is that she’s not black.
It seems to me that a better figure to use to compare would be the stats from the last time a black person was not on the presidential ballot, which brings us to ancient times: the 2004 election. And you may be surprised to learn (as was I, by the way) that George W. Bush received 13% of black votes in Florida that year.
That would be the baseline Trump would need to beat to be doing better. And in that poll I mentioned where Trump got 20% support from blacks, the difference between 20% and 13% would be (assuming as I did earlier that 180 black voters were questioned) 36 versus 23 supporters out of 180. I wouldn’t put all that much weight on differences of that magnitude.
Now, you may say “neo, you’re just trying to put down the poll because you don’t like Trump.” No, I’m not; you won’t find a lot of false optimism on this blog for candidates I like or false pessimism for ones I don’t. That’s my goal, anyway, and I think I reach it most of the time. Furthermore, in this case I don’t like either candidate and would love for someone else to win (not gonna happen, I know). So it’s not that Trump’s defeat would fill me with joy. It most definitely would not. It’s just that neither candidate’s victory fills me with anything but despair. So one could argue that I’m probably one of the more objective folks around when looking at their chances (and yes, I know that one of them is virtually certain to win, barring a black swan of extremely major proportions)—an elephantine black swan, if you like).
The key thing is that about 20% remain undecided. That’s where the election will be won or lost.
Instead of doing this you should have gone to Manchester and seen Trump in person right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOf7FaZgxG8
Damn, you missed it. You shoulda been there.
neo,
I for one will gladly take your word that you are not “just putting down the poll because you don’t like Trump”.
I would ask you to extend the same courtesy. I for one have not cited the polls “in order to shore up the Trump troops”. Nor do I see evidence of that to be the motivation of others here.
The polls showing Trump doing badly may be accurate but given media bias, a certain amount of skepticism is understandable, yes?
The Bush statistic….and even this poll with Trump at 20%….could those include black Cubans? Up until recently, Cubans leaned Republican. Not sure about black Cubans
Ackler:
Generally they are counted as Hispanics.
Blacks in Florida include many people of Caribbean origin, however, and it is possible they tend to trend a bit more Republican. I’m not sure, and don’t have time to check right now.
Vanderleun:
Interestingly enough, the Clintons are speaking in Reno today. If you hurry, maybe you can catch the tail end of it.
Geoffrey Britain:
Trump supporters cite the polls to shore up the troops—but not all Trump supporters, and not every citation.
Vanderleun:
I was at the dentist’s instead. Much more pleasant.
“Instead of doing this you should have gone to Manchester and seen Trump in person right now.”
I suppose, if seeing candidates in person is your idea of fun, it’s harmless, but it surely isn’t a good way to make a voting decision. The president will make none of his important decisions in front of a cheering crowd, and he will deliver none of his important speeches in front of a cheering crowd. So seeing a candidate in that setting teaches nothing useful.
Well, you might have been at the dentist but I’m sure he had to scrape a half-inch of Trump tartar off your grinding teeth!
For head @2:27pm: That’s where the election will be won or lost.
Agreed, and I’m beginning to wonder if that 20% might even grow over the next few months, as the awfulness of reality sets in. What it does over the last few remaining days will be (morbidly) fascinating, I think.
WRT another (completely useless) data point…the ever-scientific bumper-sticker poll.
I live between 2 widely separated western states who are red yet show shades of purple. In state #1 (went Trump in the primary), I’ve seen exactly 1 Trump bumper sticker in a very red part of town. In state #2 (went Cruz in the primary), I’ve seen exactly 1 “Hillary for Prison 2016” bumper sticker.
(Yeah, I don’t get out much…)
In a normal election, we’d see some by now. I find their absence really telling. Anyone else seeing any?
“Cornhead” not “For head”. Auto-correct is evil.
” I’ve got this column by Salena Zito, and the headline: “Stumped by Trump’s Success? Take a Drive Outside US Cities.” If you don’t understand Trump’s success, if you’re one of these people that doesn’t get this, take a drive, leave the city, go outside the city and drive around and see what you see.
“If you drive anywhere in Pennsylvania, from the turnpike to the old US routes to the dirt roads connecting small towns like Hooversville with ‘bigger’ small towns like Somerset, you might conclude that Donald Trump is ahead in this state by double digits. Large signs, small signs, homemade signs, signs that wrap around barns, signs that go from one end of a fence to another dot the landscape with such frequency that, if you were playing the old-fashioned road-trip game of counting cows, you would hit 100 in just one small town like this one.” Meaning 100 Trump signs.
“In Ruffsdale, I am pretty sure I saw more than 100 Trump signs,” writes Salena Zito. She writes for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, by the way. “It’s as if people here have not turned on the television to hear pundits drone on and on about how badly Trump is losing in Pennsylvania. It’s not just visual: In interview after interview in all corners of the state, I’ve found that Trump’s support across the ideological spectrum remains strong. Democrats, Republicans, independents, people who have not voted in presidential elections for years — they have not wavered in their support. ”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/08/23/trump_hillary_enthusiasm_gap_confounds_the_experts
Of course whether or not “The Monster Vote” will show up is something we won’t know until late, late, late on election day.
vanderleun:
That’s another thing I should add to the list of ways I described in my post about how you can tell a campaign is significantly behind: counting bumper stickers and/or yard signs. It’s as irrelevant as crowd size, and in exactly the same way.
I agree, Neo, that yard signs and campaign crowds are of little relevance (although this year is utterly atypical and should make everyone pause). My question is: what, besides polls, do you take as a sign a campaign is winning? You’ve offered a detailed explanation as to how to tell if a campaign is losing. The reverse? Polls and endless talking heads droning on (and often regurgitating what their peers have already said) show a campaign is winning…but what else?
Nobody has won the presidency in 30 years, they just weren’t the loser. The problem this year is that both candidates are losers so it’s impossible to tell who’s on top.
Unknown unknown: How these poll results should be corrected for Bradly effect? Honestly, I do not know, but suspect that it can be very important this year.
Sergey:
I believe you mean the Shy Tory effect. There is no Bradley effect per se, because both candidates are white. The Shy Tory effect is similar, but it’s about left/right rather than race. In this case I assume the Shy Tory effect could work either way, though—people could be reluctant to say they are voting for either candidate because both are so deeply flawed that a person might feel ashamed to be voting for them.
This campaign is really strange here in Puget Sound this year. Usually you see a lot of Democrat signs and bumper stickers. And you never see very many GOP signs or bumper stickers – reflecting the low number of Republicans in this area. This year there are NO signs or bumper stickers from either party. It’s almost like there isn’t a national election this year. My liberal neighbors are not talking about Hillary at all. I interpret it as a definite lack of enthusiasm. Maybe things will change after Labor Day.