When it comes to election polls, we need to acknowledge one key development in the U.S. today: most major polls are now political propaganda, NOT real assessments of any voter preference.

How do I know this? Three reasons…

First and foremost, because the pollsters have admitted it. Recently Pew Research wrote that the response rate for polls today is 6%.

SIX percent. As in, if they call 100 people, only six participate.

While evidence suggests that well-funded, telephone-based surveys still work, they have become much more difficult and expensive to conduct. Difficult because the swarm of robocalls Americans now receive, along with the development of call blocking technologies, means that lots of people don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. Response rates have gone from 36% in 1997 to 6% today.

Secondly, there is the “Shy Trump Voter” effect.

In an age in which people routinely lose their jobs/wealth/ even marriages for having the wrong political opinions, NO ONE in his or her right mind would possibly admit they are pro-Trump to a pollster (a perfect stranger).

And finally, there is the fact that only 20% of Americans trust the government.

Yes, 20%.

Just 20% trust the federal government. During the last three presidencies – through the final years of the George W. Bush administration and the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the share of Americans who say they trust the government just about always or most of the time has been below 30%. Today, 20% say they trust the government. While the share of Republicans who trust the government has increased during Trump’s time as president, only 28% say they trust the government, compared with 12% of Democrats.

So, let’s add this all up…

• Only 6 out of every 100 people respond to polls.
• Of those six that respond, virtually NO ONE is going to admit being pro-Trump.
• Only 20% of Americans trust the U.S. government which implies only one in five will want their political views known by the establishment.

Adding these up, I do not see how polls can possibly tell us much of anything.

A Possible Exception

The one exception is a recent development in that some pollsters have begun using “social” questions in which they ask respondents how they believe their neighbors are voting.

Trafalgar Group was one of the few polling firms to correctly predict the 2016 presidential election. They were able to do this by asking people questions such as, “who is your neighbor voting for?”

These kinds of questions allow respondents to implicitly reveal their political views without having to publicly state, “I support Trump.” As a result, they were able to account for the “Shy Trump Voter” in their data, leading to a correct prediction for 2016.

What is Trafalgar Group showing today?

They have Trump leading in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan. They also predict Trump will win re-election.

Again, I am NOT expressing a preference either way I’m just sharing what accurate pollsters who have been able to circumvent the “Shy Trump Voter” syndrome are predicting.

Best Regards,

Graham Summers
Editor, Money & Crisis