GURVICH: Have Our Pollsters Gone The Way Of Our Journalists?

On September 26th, Scott McKay wrote a brief but perceptive article in The Hayride about voter turnout in the upcoming midterm elections, now just thirty-six days away. The article focused on a discussion between Robert Cahaly, a respected Republican pollster who heads up the Trafalgar Group, and Dan Bongino, which discussion took place on Dan’s Fox Network show.

Briefly, the subject was the difficulty that the polling industry has been experiencing in capturing the public’s mood in the current political environment. Both Cahaly and Bongino pointed out the fact that an increasing number of folks are refusing to give truthful answers to pollsters. This phenomenon is especially pronounced on the right of the political spectrum. They feel this is because an increasing number of people are afraid of ending up on some list or other which may mark them for life and result in retribution or discrimination from left wing political and business organizations, and even from the government itself when the Left is in power.

McKay agrees with these concerns, as does this author. We both agree that the “shy voter” phenomenon is real and it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Pollsters, at least the honest ones, are going to have to learn to deal with it if they want to create accurate polls.

But that begs the question- who are the “honest ones,” and can the polling industry as a whole even be considered honest in today’s hyper-politicized environment?

Are the huge polling errors in our recent national elections the result of changes in voter perceptions and habits, or has the polling industry itself been irretrievably corrupted by the same Marxist Progressive ideology which destroyed the objectivity of what used to be the freest and most robust press in the world?

Consider the so-called Red Wave which pollsters were predicting in the late spring and early summer. Whatever happened to it? The mass media simply decreed from its pulpits that the overturning of Roe v. Wade had undone the Red Wave by mobilizing pro-abortion voters across the nation. Since then, according to the prevailing wisdom of most pollsters, the Republicans have not had much of a bounce back and the election could go either way.

The real facts are that although Joe Biden and the Democrats ticked up a bit in the polls after the Supreme Court ruling, at no time did abortion or any other so-called “Democrat” issue ever trump (pardon the pun) the issues of greatest importance to American voters – inflation, the overall health of the economy, crime, border security, etc.

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And why are so many polls continuing to use a database of registered voters this late in the election cycle, at which point likely voters are a far better database? Could it be the fact that polls which use likely voters, in addition to being more accurate, also show Republicans almost three percentage points higher than Democrats?

Did you notice that last weekend the news media actually buried the most current ABC News/Washington Post poll, which showed that among competitive congressional districts (which are after all the ones that will decide the control of the next congress), Republicans lead Democrats by 55% to 34%? Had the results been reversed, do you think for a moment that news would have been suppressed?

Folks who make political predictions lead dangerous lives, but I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb to predict a pick-up of 22-35 House seats. The Senate is a more difficult call, but I think we’ll have a narrow majority when the dust settles. That will be the end of the unrestrained and out-of-control Progressive spending colossus which has been Hell bent on destroying our values and our finances for two long years.

Now that will be a victory of immense importance, but to achieve the victory YOU MUST VOTE! Don’t believe the mass media’s false narrative – that’s part of their plan.

LOUIS GURVICH, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana

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