Ignore the polls

OPINION:

The polls are starting to show that a conservative “wave” may be forming after all for the midterm election. No kidding. 

Somebody should tell The Washington Post. They reported on Oct. 10 that “Half of voters say climate change is important in midterms.” Sure it is. You keep thinking that way.

For weeks, media polls gave the impression that Democrats were an even bet to hold the House and Senate, even though historically it would be extremely unlikely. Media outlets clearly hoped this would reduce Republican turnout. But even pollsters and media are getting worried about looking foolish as the nation recoils from the many Democrat-made disasters.

Surveys collected by Statista.com now indicate severe Biden fatigue and economic distress. Rasmussen has Republicans at 48% and Democrats at 41%. Even CBS News has Republicans at 47% and Democrats at 45%. 

The media were blindsided by candidate Donald Trump in 2016. On Oct. 18, The New York Times reported that “Hillary Clinton has a 91% chance to win” (hat tip to Ann Coulter).

Remember President Jimmy Carter against candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980? The polls showed them even, and Mr. Reagan crushed Mr. Carter. In 2000, a New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 3 had Al Gore with 45% against George W. Bush’s 39%. Mr. Bush came within 0.5% of Mr. Gore’s total popular vote and won the Electoral College vote.

Why are the polls so often wrong? For starters, they tend to survey more Democrats than Republicans. This is sometimes intentional, but not always.

Like many people we know, my wife and I haven’t responded to a telephone political poll in years. We are one of the reasons why the media act surprised when conservatives win.

Many polls are conducted by leftist media organizations like the Times, the Post, CNN, CBS News and ABC News or by liberal-leaning foundations like Pew. Questions often are designed to favor an outcome cheered by liberals. That’s why many conservatives, sometimes politely, tell pollsters to take their queries elsewhere.

But this year, something else is afoot: a well-grounded fear of revealing political sympathies in a cancel culture backed by government muscle. 

President “Nobody effs with a” Biden, whose nasty streak is widening by the day, has declared half the country “semi-fascist” and a “danger to democracy.” His attorney general has turned the Justice Department loose on dissenting parents at school board meetings while ignoring dozens of church burnings and attacks on crisis pregnancy centers. 

The FBI raided Mr. Trump’s home and arrested Trump staffers roughly in public to warn the rest of us against speaking out. The FBI also conducted a SWAT raid on the home of Pennsylvania pro-life activist Mark Houck, 48, pointing guns at his terrified wife and children. Mr. Houck had pushed a man the year before at a protest, a charge that a court had dismissed.

And there is the Jan. 6 Capitol riot show trial in the House. Stalinist tactics send the message that, like their media, the ruling elites no longer will permit dissenting viewpoints.

The Biden administration is leaning on Big Tech to censor disagreement on COVID-19, climate change and election integrity. In September, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who filed a lawsuit in May, said that at least 45 federal officials in the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies had “communicate[d] with social media platforms about ‘misinformation’ and censorship.’”

Calling it a “censorship enterprise,” they concluded that “the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media companies and clearly coordinate to censor freedom of speech.” For example, 32 federal officials leaned on Meta (formerly Facebook), while 11 contacted YouTube. 

In August, Mark Zuckerberg spilled that the FBI had pressured Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story just ahead of the 2020 election. We are witnessing a Soviet-style government/media axis crackdown on dissent. 

I was interviewed in March by Larry Jarvik, an accomplished author, for his YouTube channel to explain a column I wrote for this paper about how the Biden administration is gaslighting America. Within days, YouTube took it down, citing a breach of community standards. When Mr. Jarvik appealed the decision, they denied it without citing any examples. You can watch the interview on Rumble.

Increasingly, the media and Big Tech have demonized common sense, honest inquiry, traditional morality and even obvious biological facts. 

So, getting back to the polls, why would anyone willingly share his or her political views? 

The takeaway here is: Ignore the polls. They can affect but can’t ultimately change reality. 

Mr. Biden’s gambit to turn the election into a referendum on abortion instead of ruinous inflation, crime, the border crisis, class warfare, trans madness, COVID-19 tyranny and other Democrat-authored calamities are not going to work.

• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His new book, “Crooked: What Really Happened in the 2020 Election and How to Stop the Fraud” (D. James Kennedy Ministries, September 2022), is available at his website, roberthknight.com, and at djkm.org/crooked.