If you’re obsessing and fretting about the current presidential election polls – especially if, as a Democrat, you’re freaking out about surveys showing Biden and Trump in a dead heat – you’d be wise to remember what screenwriter William Goldman said about Hollywood:
“Nobody knows anything.”
Bear that in mind as we assess the latest attempts to take the public’s pulse about the ’24 race. The New York Times/Siena poll has Biden and Trump deadlocked at 43 percent apiece. Ipsos/Reuters has Trump up by two points, 35 to 33. Morning Consult has Biden up by three, 44 to 41. Emerson, surveying the crucial state of Michigan, has Biden and Trump tied at 44 each. Emerson has Trump up by 2 points in crucial Arizona.
Understandably, you may well be alarmed that a serially-indicted aspirational fascist could possibly be tied with arguably the most successful domestic president since FDR, but calm yourself. Take a deep breath – because these polls, which cater to our craving for metrics, are basically worthless.
We Americans, rooted in the here and now, aren’t great at putting things in historical perspective. But that’s what I’m here for. Allow me to hose you down:
Fifteen months before the 1984 presidential election, Democrat Walter Mondale led incumbent Ronald Reagan by two points. Democrat John Glenn, the astronaut hero, led Reagan by 10 points. Fifteen months later, when the votes were finally tallied, Reagan buried Mondale.
Fifteen months before the 1996 election, Republican Bob Dole led incumbent Bill Clinton by six points. The New York Times reported that Clinton “has failed to reap an important benefit of incumbency that he might have expected: political credit for a healthy economy.” Fifteen months later, Clinton beat Dole by eight points.
Fifteen months before the 2012 election, Republican Mitt Romney led incumbent Barack Obama by four points. Thirteen months before that election, Romney led incumbent Obama by six points, and the spokesman for that particular poll warned that Obama was “treading water in the deep part of the pool.” But when the votes were finally tallied, Obama beat Romney by 3.9.
And check out what happened in 2004. A mere eight months before that election, Democrat John Kerry led incumbent George W. Bush by six points. But in November, Bush beat Kerry by 2.4.
I’m not saying that a ’24 Trump restoration is impossible; in this semi-dysfunctional land of ours, there’s clearly a mass yearning for a crime-ridden “strong”man. But, as evidenced by my four factoids, early polls long before an election shouldn’t be taken seriously. Americans tend to dump on their incumbents when there’s no election on the horizon; basically, it’s a “free” vote. As The Times reported in August 1995, most people are “profoundly disenchanted by politics and politicians” (sound familiar?), so they naturally take out their frustrations on the top leader. But when the chips are down on election day, they usually stick with the incumbent.
Snapshots of the current mood tell us nothing about the future. Only then will we know what we can’t know now. Will Trump’s three (soon to be four) criminal indictments, and a likely federal trial, drag him asunder or power him forward? Will the robust economy – including new factory construction, up 80 percent over last year – buoy Biden’s prospects, or will swing voters care more about the travails of his son Hunter? Will Biden stay healthy? Heck, will Trump stay healthy (it’s largely overlooked that he’s an obese 77-year-old)? Will fear of crime and immigrants spark a MAGA voter surge? Will the overturning of Roe v. Wade galvanize progressives and suburban women?
We just don’t know. The people currently being polled don’t know. So let’s have a freakout moratorium, because what William Goldman said about Hollywood applies to us, too. And as Democratic pollster Mark Mellman quipped three decades ago, “If there was a law requiring relevance, national polls would be illegal.”