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What do the current presidential polls mean?

The New Neo Posted on by

Ace reports on polls that are encouraging for Trump. When I read that sort of thing, I have mixed feelings.

The first feeling is the stirring of hope. Of course, the 2024 presidential election shouldn’t even be close. In terms of a comparison of their records as president, Trump should be leading Biden by at least 80/20. Realistically, however, I know that TDR and the MSM and force of habit mean that the actual numbers are far closer. But it doesn’t surprise me that Trump is nevertheless ahead; that’s how terrible Biden has been.

Paradoxically, Trump has also been helped by the lawfare against him. A lot of people, even those who dislike Trump but understand the danger of politically motivated trials, don’t like what’s happening to him and blame the Biden administration and the Democrats for banana republic tactics.

But … but … despite encouraging polls, over the years I have lost a great deal of faith in the validity of election results. The opportunity to cheat is there, because Democrats keep trying to advance rules to make cheating more easy rather than less. I think there’s little question that the left has no ethical objections to cheating; it’s only the practical considerations that might thwart them, and in big blue cities there isn’t much to stop them. And it’s in big blue cities that cheating gives the Democrats a great deal of bang for their buck, even in swing states or perhaps especially in swing states.

What’s more, there’s plenty of time before voting starts to cook up some new anti-Trump scheme and spread the word with the full cooperation of the MSM.

So it’s hard for me to have a strong belief that Biden will lose and Trump will win. I write “Biden” because, although many if not most people have been saying for ages that Biden won’t be running, I have long held that – short of him dying or close to it – Biden will remain the Democrats’ nominee in 2024. It’s an ominous prospect – and yet it may be helpful in a way, because Biden has become so unpopular an incumbent.

But even if Trump were to be elected – and I strongly hope that will happen – it’s terrible to even contemplate the forces that will be arrayed against him.

Comments

What do the current presidential polls mean? — 47 Comments

  1. “…the forces that will be arrayed against him”.

    Yep. Hopefully he already has a list of competent hardliners he can appoint to influential and powerful positions to calm things down and restore confidence in our government.

    Acknowledging my political ignorance, Seems like Ted Cruz would be a good attorney general.

  2. Here’s a link to a list and a map showing all the states where ballot harvesting is legal: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_harvesting_laws_by_state

    We have to keep in mind that the pandemic presented an opportunity to completely change the country’s election procedures. That’s the legal part, then there’s the illegal part. The combination of ballot harvesting, expanded mail-in voting, and streetside ballot boxes make illegal voting an impossible temptation for Democratic machines in big cities.

    In some ways, a big part of the election is already over.

  4. We Americans are watching our country and its amazingly wonderful Constitution getting flushed down the toilet by totalitarian Democrats (the sick joke is in that name), who stand by corrupt, demented Dopey Joe and his irrational, anti-Israel decisions (with WH Obamaphiles making them).

    Dems march in lockstep in House and Senate, haven’t you noticed? Like Hitler Youth. Obama warned us he intended the”transformation” of America, and I suspect Obama is giving Dopey Joe direction.
    The USA will not long survive, but will split into several parts. Fortunately I live in the Deep South where classical American thinking survives vigorously, unlike New England and the Pacific NW. Long live the SEC!

  5. Cicero,

    I have long thought that the USA will end with a whimper, not a bang. As the various tribes settle into enclaves where they feel simpatico with those around them, people will realize that we have less and less in common and begin to simply ignore one another. Eventually, the whole thing will collapse into “who cares?”

    At least that’s what I hope. OTOH, if for example the southwest’s Hispanic majority decide they want closer economic and political ties to Mexico, I doubt very much the federal government would use force to keep them in the union. They might try bribing them to stay in (c.f. Ottawa’s showering money on Quebec), but if it comes down to it, they’ll cave. If the Mountain West were to pull a similar stunt, you can bet that massive, deadly force would be used on all those awful white people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

  7. it’s in big blue cities that cheating gives the Democrats a great deal of bang for their buck, even in swing states or perhaps especially in swing states.

    And there it is. The election is a foregone conclusion since those swing states are moving in the direction of MORE corrupt elections, not less.

    I don’t think there’s a good scheme to do anything about it–making some kind of Federal or Constitutional rule about how elections have to be held is the sort of thing that can’t be done unless there’s overwhelming support for it, and there simply isn’t when half the country approves of our shiny new banana republic.

    The Constitution allows states to choose electors in any way they please. The states did not generally allocate electors by a winner-take-all popular vote until 1836, and there’s no reason why any state can’t choose a different way–unless of course a Hawaiian judge issues an injunction.

  8. Cicero, so glad my husband and I recently moved from the Pacific NW to Texas! I’d lived on the west coast my whole life (67 years) and I could not be more delighted to have escaped.

  9. I served as a lawyer for the Republican Party at several recent elections in Detroit. It is very easy to manufacture votes in Detroit and flint in a way that cannot be corrected in a recount. Therefore I don’t think Trump has a chance in Michigan.

  10. Everyone who thinks the country will split up please explain, who gets the nukes?

  11. I think the value of polls showing Trump in the lead is as Babylon Bee notes. Not really needing twice as many fake ballots, but that it is harder to cheat and show an amazing win with polls suggesting a loss. The more the statistics don’t work, the more noticeable the cheat. Of course, the simple solution is fake polls during the final days. Note ABCNews/538 dropping Rasmussen Reports polling as unreliable despite being with 3% of the 2020 results.

  12. I think the fix is in. They’re aren’t many states they actually HAVE to cheat in to win. Even then, it doesn’t take much to cheat to win a state. They just need to focus on the states with expected narrow margins, and in districts there with a large number of Democrat voters, and with the highest number of electoral votes. The last election, that was Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina. They managed to cheat to get the first four on that list. I don’t think they will have to cheat in more states. They are probably already working on how to “fix” the create in North Carolina.

    Can Trump win? In a fair and legally run election, yes. I am pretty sure he won four years ago. Will Trump win? I’m afraid it’s highly unlikely, since the next election will not be fair, nor legally run.

    We are so screwed.

  13. Unless one starts from the premise that the Dems now have a Stalinist level of power to “count the votes,” then there is, by definition, a margin which is Too Big To Rig.

    What that margin is, is the key question. I don’t know the answer, but optimist that I am, I believe it is attainable this year.

  14. How much of DC is against Trump? How much of the intelligence services are against Trump? Colleges? Media? General Officers in the military? One man cannot reverse the direction we are going and I don’t think the average American even wants to get involved or is too gullible to understand what’s at stake. Hope I’m wrong, but, the evidence I see says no.

  15. Hope I’m wrong, but, the evidence I see says no.

    Richard F Cook:

    I suggest looking for evidence that says yes. I see a lot of it. But then, that’s the kinda guy I am.

    Pessimists may win more bets, but optimists get more done and have more fun.

  16. Huxley:

    Evidence is evidence. You are conflating emotions with events. The fact that you look for “evidence” confirming your view tells me that. To me evidence is just evidence.

  17. I don’t care about the polls. What matters is that Trump’s rallies are huge and becoming bigger. Eighty thousand in New Jersey, are you kidding me?

    If I were Trump I would encourage the crowd to go back home and start self organizing now. Figure out the laws and how they use them to our advantage. Pound the legislators day and night to kill the Dems’ corruption of the laws. Institute lawfare against the Democrat lawyers and make them scream and die. I have no doubt that the locals in every state could do this and be successful, but it has to start right away.

  18. Richard F Cook:

    Disagree. All events are interpreted and emotions are involved.

    If you believe that you are arriving at the true, objective Truth about events and your emotions are not involved, then I don’t believe you understand what it is to be human and how much underlying emotions filter what is perceived.

  19. fullmoon on May 13, 2024 at 5:35 pm said:
    “Hopefully [Trump] already has a list of competent hardliners he can appoint to influential and powerful positions …” From what I understand, the Heritage Foundation (along with a coalition of 100 other conservative organizations) is moving forward with their Leadership 2025 project, to id and provide a set of qualified conservatively oriented candidates for the 1800 or so SES positions, etc.

    “Acknowledging my political ignorance, Seems like Ted Cruz would be a good attorney general.” Adding my ignorance to yours … I would currently favor keeping Cruz in the Senate (in part as he is gaining seniority, etc.). Perhaps in 10-15 years a nomination to SCOTUS? But for AG I have been thinking of folks like Christian Adams, or maybe Trey Grody. Others here might have even better suggestions?
    We will want someone who is strong willed enough to counter any Trump faux pas’ in a vengeance/revenge direction if they do not also have solid legal footing and fully credible evidence to justify an otherwise politically related criminal case against the Obama/Biden “mafia” and lawfare crooks. But if they do … then by all means go for retribution as “real justice”! And “pour encourager les autres”.

  20. Leland @ 7:58 —

    ” It is harder to cheat and show an amazing win with polls suggesting a loss”
    This reminds me of the failed “red wave” of the 2022 midterm elections.
    Polls can be worthless, I thought that showed us.

  21. pour encourager les autres

    R2L:

    Hey! That’s French. As I know you know. But it’s such a great line from a great French writer that I’ll be a prig and explain it.
    ______________________

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres

    In this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others

    –Voltaire, “Candide” (1759)
    ______________________

    If you haven’t read “Candide,” it’s short, wonderful, and once upon a time it was essential reading for the Western canon.

    Voltaire was referencing a real British naval officer, John Byng, who was executed for insufficient ardor in fighting the French.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng

  22. You are aware of your emotions and bias and try to not let them sway you. Like adults. You don’t like something but accept it for what it is. If there is no absolute true we are screwed. What you describe sounds like “your truth”.

  24. Echoing neo – Romney and Ryan believed in 2012 that they were likely to win because they too were drawing huge crowds to their rallies in the closing weeks of the campaign.

    There’s nothing new under the sun.

    Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to believe that Trump actually has a shot in this election, but I still think he is more than likely going to lose. Even in the polls where he’s ahead, he’s still under 50 by a few points. I suspect he’ll end up at about 47% again, which seems to be his ceiling. Maybe JFK, West, et all pull Biden down below Trump in enough swing states for him to eek it out again like 2016, or maybe it looks more like 2020. I’d bet on the 2020 scenario. I can’t see Trump winning MI or WI with Dems in full control of those states. I just don’t see PA going red this year either. Same with AZ, it’ll be revenge of the John McCain Republicans, again, with Lake sharing the ticket with Trump. I believe that will be game, set, match in the EC. So my prediction is that Trump takes back GA, holds NC, loses AZ, and loses the popular vote by the same margin that he did last time. So closer in the EC than 2020, but still no cigar.

    And when this happens, the same old voices here will insist that the election must have been rigged because how could anyone vote for Biden? (And if Trump does manage to win, Democrats will insist that the election was rigged because how could anyone have voted for Donald Trump?)

    Wash, rinse, repeat.

  25. From playing around here:

    https://www.270towin.com/

    If Trump loses GA, I don’t see a realistic path to victory. I think he will win GA.

    Assuming that he wins GA, I think it comes down to PA. If Trump flips GA and PA and everything else from 2020 is the same, Trump wins.

    But if he loses, PA . . . I find it very unlikely that Trump will win MI or WI, which are both under full Dem control. (Gee, maybe nominating the purest Trumper candidates in order to stick it to the “uniparty” wasn’t such a great idea.) So then if Trump loses PA, WI, and MI, his best case is a 269-269 tie, which would also require winning AZ and NV, winning all of Nebraska’s EVs and pulling one EV from Maine. That’s an inside straight if there ever was one. AZ is at least plausible, though unlikely in my view, but NV is fool’s gold for Republicans and has been for decades.

    So it likely comes down to GA and PA. Like I said, I think Trump will win GA easily. PA, I’m not so sure. PA has mail-in voting and two deep blue urban centers where Dems control absolutely everything. And PA usually turns on the suburbs around Philly and Pittsburgh – yet Republicans have nominated the one candidate who is kryptonite to surburban voters. Unless Trump can turbocharge turnout in the rural areas to unprecedented levels, PA (and the election) may be out of reach this year.

    Another cautionary tale – I had an extended discussion this weekend about the election with some blue collar friends – lifelong Democrats but people who should be the core of the MAGA base. These Trump trials may not be playing out the way that people in the right wing bubble think that they are. You have to get so far into the legal weeds to explain why, for example, the Bragg and James cases are such travesties that people just tune out. My friends ask – “If the prosecution’s case is so weak, how did these cases get to trial? Are you saying that the judges are corrupt?” My answer is “yes, the judges and the prosecutor are corrupt.” But my friends aren’t ready to believe that. They felt as though this was just Trump finally being held accountable for his BS.

    I guess we’ll see, but I’m not all that moved by polls showing Trump ahead, but under 50% and within the margin of error.

  27. Is it aluminium or aluminum yes merchan is corrupt chutkin is extra duper corrupt jones well need i say more

    Have you been following the fraud the lovely judge cannon has uncovered

  28. Miguel cervantes – I’ve been following it, yes. But has the average swing voter in PA been following it? Almost certainly no. Is the average swing voter in PA going to recognize it for what it is when the media is telling them that everything is in order and that Judge Cannon is a Trump hack? Again, almost certainly no. I think that’s what you miss if you’re inside the right wing bubble. (And om citing Bonchie at RedState to rebut that notion is the most right wing bubble thing ever.)

    I’ve made this argument before. People who aren’t political obsessives see these trials in the context of Trump’s bad behavior. Cheating on your wife with a porn star is bad. Paying the porn star six figures to keep quiet about it is sleazy. Add in a hand wave about business records and campaign finance law, and most people outside of the right wing bubble are very ready to believe that a crime was committed. What Dems are doing is dirty, it’s destructive, it’s wrong – but that doesn’t mean it won’t be effective.

    (And I’m sorry, you have to drink very deeply from the Trump Kool-Aid to believe with any certainty that Trump was pure as the driven snow in his interactions with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal back in the 00s.)

  29. The utter corruption of every part of the legal system that amounts to criminal malfeasance

    A sixth person committed suicide over this january 6th travesty that makes makes 8 considering the two murders
    The fraud that jack smith tried to perpetrate the spoiling of the legitimate balloting system all of this leaves you cold

  30. 2012 was rigged. That was the first year of dominion. Some of the scams from 2020 can’t be used this time because we know about them now.

  31. Soros bought the court in wisconsin he has like wise corrupted the machinery in arizona the secretary of state is a cartel lawyer and we know michigan

  32. The die is cast for this year, but for the future, maybe the GOP shouldn’t nominate a candidate who has repeatedly demonstrated a hard ceiling of about 47% of the vote?

    You can go on all day about how it’s just mean tweets. (It isn’t just mean tweets, BTW.) But, if you can’t get enough voters onboard to get your margins up out of that 1-3% range in swing states, you’re sunk. You can be as right as the day is long about the deep state and everything else. It won’t change anything.

    If the GOP nominee were up by a solid 5 or 6 points, we wouldn’t be talking about machinery in AZ, MI, or anywhere else because it wouldn’t matter. And in this environment, with Biden as awful and unpopular as he is, the GOP nominee should absolutely be up by 5-10 points. But he is not.

  33. Chases Eagles – 2012 was not rigged. That’s crazy talk from deep in the right wing bubble.

  35. For what it’s worth, I agree with Bauxite’s analysis of the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

    At the risk of repeating myself, Democrats can now win almost any election via LEGAL ballot harvesting.

    Please consider taking a few minutes to look at this web page:
    https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_harvesting_laws_by_state

    Here’s a summary:

    24 states and D.C. permitted someone chosen by the voter to return mail ballots on their behalf in most cases

    13 states specified who may return ballots (i.e., household members, caregivers, and/or family members) in most cases

    1 state explicitly allowed only the voter to return their ballot

    12 states did not specify whether someone may return another’s ballot

    The Ballotpedia site also has a map that clearly displays the recent radical change in election laws.

    Elections aren’t what we grew up with. As children, we cast secret ballots for class president or homecoming queen. That model is dead. Elections are now like a farming operation. In some ways, they’re like a factory operation. Since Chinese facories make everything now, I wouldn’t be surprised if millions of pre-cast Democratic ballots have already been manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico, along with the fentanyl pre-cursors. Soon, they’ll be smuggled across the border and held ready in swing districts. If needed, just enough will suddenly appear as late-night ballots in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, and Phoenix.

    But there’s a good chance that counterfeit ballots won’t be needed. According to a Rasmussen poll, more than 20% of mail-in voters admit that they cheated in the 2020 election. That’s just the people who are willing to admit it. And they’re probably close to 99% Democrats.

    Under current laws and practices, elections are legally rigged for Democrats. If the rigging fails to produce enough votes, then illegal methods are routinely applied. For Republicans to win, they need to receive a very large majority — far beyond what Trump currently polls. Does that mean that Republicans can never win an election? No, but it means that they can’t win a close election if they don’t imitate the Democrats.

    Democrats wrote the new rules, and their political operatives know what to do. Why haven’t Republicans followed suit? I think that part of the failure is Trump’s. He seems incapable of understanding the nitty-gritty kind of politics required for party success. At times, he clearly hates the GOP itself. This failure to pay attention to the details of politics and government also made him a failure at the administration component of the presidency. But there’s plenty of blame to go around. For example, Mitt Romney’s niece, Ronna McDaniel, was chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 2017 until her resignation in 2024. She was an abject failure at her job, and I have to wonder whether that was intentional.

    Apologies for the long rant. On this topic, my self-restraint seems to evaporate.

  36. Because they have sought to jail anyone that challenges them or bankrupt them

    The dominion trial the real one is still going not the kangaroo hearing where evidence was denied

    Marc elias should have been disbarred after his fingerprints on the danchenko dossier were revealed but who will bell that cat
    Same for jack smith who is a walking talking scoundrel

  37. What bubble is CC™ living in? Is it a HAZMAT Level A (fully encapsulated splash and vapor protection) suit fully isolating him from those right wing free ranging zombies? The “smellies.”

    Who were these “blue collar” people you spoke to CC™?

  38. I suspect Biden will be re-elected. He won’t get anywhere close to “81 million votes” but I think he’ll get about 65 million.

  39. Cornflour – I agree. Ballot harvesting and mail-in voting are basically force multipliers for the most extreme partisans – mostly on the left now because the right really isn’t up to speed with that stuff, yet.

    Previously, if you had one politically-engaged family member, they had to cajole other household members and family members to actually go to the polls on election day (or during early voting). Now, a single partisan family member can effectively cast multiple votes. (“Here, I already filled out this ballot. You want to vote for Biden, don’t you? Just sign this and I’ll mail it in/drop it off for you.”) How many of those people wouldn’t have bothered to vote in past years? And that’s also even before you get party and campaign apparatuses involved.

    But that’s why I think Trump’s “stolen election” claims fly like a lead balloon, and why he’s shooting himself (and us) in the foot by making wild and wildly inaccurate claims about thousands of fraudulent votes and Dominion conspiracies and all that. This isn’t really (so much) about ballot stuffing or tally rigging. As much as we hear stories about 25 voters registered at a single bedroom apartment, I don’t think it’s mostly about that. It’s about collecting and counting votes from people who otherwise couldn’t be bothered.

    I think that is a degenerate form of “democracy.” But you’re sure as heck not going to counter it by whining about it or throwing around BS conspiracy theories.

  40. Latches,no standing, January 6 false flags, murder, senior DOD personnel acting unconstitutionally, and of course unrelenting lawfare might be features of your “democracy” CC™. If you were paying attention.

  42. sdferr:

    There was quite a bit of fanciful (CC™) prose in the article you just cited;

    Johnson was a chief architect of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, and last week he called the hush money trial and the other election-year cases against Trump a “borderline criminal conspiracy.”

    I was caught completely unawares by Mike Johnson’s skullduggery back in 2020! LOL

    Winston Smith lives!

  46. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh, my!

    Or dogs and cats living together!

    Or a threat to “our democracy!”

    Or there is no Second Ammendment in my courtroom (nor any other).

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