There’s an old fishing song that starts with those words—of course the pole in the song is a fishing pole but the polls that have been in the news recently are polls which offer insights on political races, especially the 2024 presidential race.
I started this blog post right after the NYTimes/Siena College poll came out last week but felt so frustrated by all the doom and gloom coverage for Biden and the Democrats that I did not finish writing this post much less posting it. Maybe frustrated is too mild a description of my feelings. Maybe fed up is more accurate.
I don’t know about you but I am weary and often suspicious of polls these days. If we think back, we can recall that the polls predicted a landslide victory for Hilary Clinton when she ran for President against Donald Trump. I had friends who were so confident she would be our first woman President they had booked flights and hotel rooms in Washington, DC so they could attend her inauguration. She did indeed get the majority of the general votes but she lost in the Electoral College votes and thus, she lost the election. The polls did not prepare us for that defeat.
Remember also the polls predicting a red tsunami for the midterms last year? Those polls were incorrect as well. Yes, the Republicans did gain control of the House but barely. I wish I could say that “barely” hasn’t mattered but we know it has. Are you as frustrated—no, fed up—as I am when we are paying the salaries of those Representatives to vote on silly issues like reducing a government salary to $ 1/year—issues which of course do not pass— instead of voting on the issues that really matter to the American people?! Fed up!!
I am also skeptical of polls primarily because I wonder whom exactly are they are polling? I don’t know about you but I never answer my phone if I don’t recognize the caller. Friends and children of friends far younger than I generally express to me that they never answer their phone at all. The only contact I have with our older grandchildren are via text (though I am immensely grateful that the younger ones still are willing to FaceTime—though I think they are far too young to be of interest to the pollsters).
Thus, it seems to me that the only people being polled are oldsters with rotary dial phones. Okay. I exaggerate and just yesterday a good friend told me she had indeed responded to a phone call that was taking a poll.
But let’s just say I was mad with the polls so I stopped writing last week’s blog.
Now of course we have had the vote in Ohio that added the right to an abortion to their Constitution and several Democrats were elected to office, most notably in the Commonwealth of Virginia proving that Youngkin’s poll predictions were quite wrong. Thank goodness.
We have to realize that polls are not forecasts of the future (though they are presented that way) but simply a glimpse of what the situation is at a given moment in time. David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece on November 9th for the NYTimes the reminds us of a crucial fact: Americans increasingly use polls to vent, not to vote.
As Brooks continues:
As the progressive political strategist Michael Podhorzer argues, a lot of this negativity is not a reflection on particular politicians. It is “indicative of broad and intense dissatisfaction with our governing institutions and political parties.” These days, when pollsters call people a year away from the election, they take the opportunity to lash out at whoever is in the White House. It’s their way of venting and saying they want change.
This does not mean that, when it comes time to cast ballots and actually pick a president, their preferences will be the same. “Americans know the difference between answering a survey and casting a ballot, even if the polling industrial complex and pundits don’t,” Podhorzer writes. George W. Bush and Barack Obama had periods of low poll numbers but still won re-election when voters had to make an actual decision.
So even though after a poll appears, as it did with the most recent one, every television commentator wants to proclaim that it is all over for President Biden, that Donald Trump will likely win the 2024 Presidency and things are total gloom and doom for the Democrats.
Don’t believe it. Don’t buy in to the negativity and despair. Yes, this is easier said than done. It reminds me somewhat of the children’s tale of Chicken Little and everyone running around shouting, “The sky is falling. The sky is falling.” And of course, the sky was not falling at all. Fear can make us believe crazy things.
Fear seems to be a major thread in the political world today. Be afraid. Be very afraid. I don’t mean to say we should be naive. The 2024 election matters greatly. I think the best way forward is to do whatever we can to support the candidates that we believe will support our Democracy and to both vote and work to encourage others to vote.
The sky isn’t falling. If we really look at the work President Biden has accomplished we will see that it is quite impressive. It is extremely good news that we have had a President with years of experience in foreign policy, one who knows how to negotiate rather than just throw tantrums.
No candidate is perfect. Not a one of them. But there are certainly ones that are better than others and maybe we ought to start with the ones that actually tell the truth rather than spread lies.
Maybe we need to spend a little more time in the months to come relaxing with a fishing pole (either literally or metaphorically) rather than fretting over polls. I will try.
And most importantly, of course, vote. Vote. Vote.
I try to be loud by writing to my congressman ( not that he really cares or listens to me but I know they still track those that disagree with him); sometimes writing a letter to the newspaper will get published; and just encouraging people to vote. I also work at the polls just as a way to support the election process.
Right on, Jeanne. I agree with you 100%. I have read that the mainstream media is often misrepresenting the Dems and President Biden in both their headlines and their articles. And, of course, the polls are sometimes done by the Repubs who call their own supporters so that the results lean toward them. I also read that the recent NYT polls showing Trump leading Biden had multiple design problems. It is so frustrating! I take heart and hope from some blogs that I read regularly, most notably Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson, and Joyce Vance, among others. And Simon Rosenberg's blog includes lots of research, graphs, and facts. Lots of work to do in 2024.