NEWS AND OPINION:
Polls and op-eds have arrived nonstop as the midterm elections close in. The genuine countdown is on. Yet despite the onslaught of survey numbers and deep thoughts, the findings are inconclusive. Grand predictions and confident consensus among pollsters and pundits about the outcome of the elections are scarce. And no wonder. They remember what happened in 2016 when things went awry and President Trump won the White House despite their expert opinions and intricate surveys.
Some journalists appear to have little sympathy.
“Blowing smoke: Sorry, pundits, but you have no clue what will happen on Tuesday,” wrote Vanity Fair columnist Peter Hamby.
“The myth of the election prediction wizard is no more,” observed Andrew Prokop, a columnist for Vox.
Things change.
Those pundits and pollsters are leery of issuing grandiose predictions at this point. Some might even admit they simply don’t know what to think.
And perhaps the polling apparatus itself is to blame.
“It’s typical. There’s always some confusion just prior to elections,” veteran pollster Patrick Caddell tells Inside the Beltway, pointing out that despite technology which has made polling nimble, it can be a challenge to get verified respondents.
“The refusal rates on polls is incredible,” says Mr. Caddell, who anecdotally cites a recent research effort which required 42,000 calls of inquiry to yield some 600 authentic respondents.
There’s another factor which can contribute to the mix.
“A lot of media outlets don’t spend money on in-depth polling. The numbers are all over the place. We are probably reaching levels of uncertainty which we haven’t seen before,” Mr. Caddell says.
After the 2016 polling debacle, the American Association for Public Opinion Research formed a committee full of authentic polling experts to study the kinks and figure out what went wrong.
“Pollsters are well aware that the profession faces serious challenges that the 2016 election has only served to highlight. But this is also a time of extensive experimentation and innovation in the field. The role of polling in a democracy goes far beyond simply predicting the horse race,” a Pew Research Center analysis noted just three days after Mr. Trump’s victory.
“At its best, polling provides an equal voice to everyone and helps to give expression to the public’s needs and wants in ways that elections may be too blunt to do. That is why restoring polling’s credibility is so important, and why we are committed to helping in the effort to do so,” the pollster said.
’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE MIDTERMS
’Twas the night before midterms and all through the House — along with the Senate. Yes, well. Excitement builds as the hours pass, the polling places are readied and the lines form outside.
How to spend the last few hours of Monday as exit polls arrive? President Trump will offer the ultimate “night before midterms” interview on Fox News. Prime time host Sean Hannity will sit down with Mr. Trump from a rally site in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which includes a performance by legendary singer Lee Greenwood. It is also the very last stop in the president’s ambitious get-out-the-vote tour which brought him to nine cities nationwide over the weekend alone. Airtime is 9 p.m. Monday.
LADIES’ DAY
“At Trump rallies, women see a hero protecting a way of life,” reads the headline from a lengthy New York Times story published Sunday which included multiple interviews with the often-stylish Republican ladies who attend MAGA rallies.
“President Trump enjoys a herolike status among women who say he is fighting to preserve a way of life threatened by an increasingly liberal Democratic Party,” write Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Katie Rogers.
“It doesn’t mean I agree with everything that comes out of his mouth, because like his wife, I’d like to take his phone from him, but I just felt that we needed someone with a business sense to get our country back on track, and that’s what Trump has done,” Kristin Sellers told The Times.
ONLY 16 PERCENT EMBRACE THE ’CARAVAN’
An Economist/YouGov poll has stark findings as the Honduran immigrant “caravan” approaches the U.S. southern border. It found that over a quarter of Americans agree that “everyone in the caravan should be turned away at the border.”
The news media may wish the nation’s was waiting with open arms for the caravan. The survey suggests otherwise.
The poll revealed that only 16 percent of Americans overall would accept all the immigrants, a decision shared by 27 percent of Democrats but only 6 percent of Republicans.
Another 28 percent overall would flat out “reject all of the immigrants”; 56 percent of Republicans but only 9 percent of Democrats agreed with that. There were also conditional responses: 38 percent would accept only those who have a valid claim for asylum — and “reject the rest.” Close to half of Democrats — 47 percent — liked that idea, along with a third of Republicans.
A noteworthy 44 percent of Americans approve of President Trump’s decision to send troops to the U.S./Mexico border; only a third disapprove of the idea and the rest are neutral or undecided about it. Naturally, there is a partisan divide: 87 percent of Republicans approve of those troops, — but only 15 percent of Democrats.
POLL DU JOUR
• 71 percent of Americans say any voter should have the option of voting early or absentee; 57 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats agree.
• 67 percent overall say “everything possible should be done to make it easier to vote”; 48 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats agree.
• 60 percent overall say making it easier to vote would not make elections less secure; 41 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Democrats agree.
• 32 percent say citizens should have to “prove” they want to vote by registering ahead of time; 51 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats agree.
• 28 percent overall say voters should be allowed to vote early or absentee with documented reasons; 42 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of Democrats agree.
Source: A Pew Research Center poll of 10,683 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 24-Oct. 7 and released Friday.
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• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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