This is just a short clip from Dan Bongino’s Unfiltered show on Fox News, and we think it captures something all these underwhelming poll numbers don’t.

It’s Robert Cahaly, who’s the CEO of the Republican polling firm the Trafalgar Group, who’s built a reputation as one of the most accurate, if not THE most accurate, polling outfits anywhere, talking about the difficulty of the industry to capture the public’s mood in the current environment.

Cahaly – and Bongino – are correct in talking about the difficulty of capturing the “shy voter” in polling. Lots of people, particularly on the Right, simply will not give truthful answers to polls. I can’t tell you how many die-hard Republican voters I run into who tell me they’ll lie to pollsters because they’re afraid of going on some list.

And honestly, while that used to be comical and come off as a tinfoil hat paranoid idea, it isn’t anymore.

There are SWAT raids going on all over America over things that used to involve subpoenas or civil actions. The weaponization of federal law enforcement by the Biden administration is on a scale which dwarfs the infamous Palmer Raids 100 years ago – and those were in response to a wave of anarchist and far-left bombings that killed people, not a protest against a crooked presidential election the only person killed within was one of the protesters.

So yeah – the secrecy of the booth is your only real protection for your political stance nowadays, at least in the eyes of lots of conservative voters, and that’ll make the job of Cahaly and his fellow pollsters doubly hard.

And yet Trafalgar is showing Republican candidates in statewide races across the country doing fairly well despite the distortion the “shy voter” phenomenon is doing. His device of “how do you think your neighbors are going to vote” is a way to get a more accurate answer from people afraid to go on a list.

He’s seeing a massive hidden turnout in an election that, to Republicans, is existential. He’s probably right. Though as we get closer to the November 8 midterms, you’ll see those polling numbers start to reflect the red wave the other pollsters have been poo-poohing for months.