Academic

SCOTT MCCAY: The Polls, or the Fundamentals? We don?t really need to go back through all of the?

By Stephen Green

SCOTT MCCAY: The Polls, or the Fundamentals?

We don?t really need to go back through all of the double-digit leads Hillary Clinton had on Trump, and the alleged mathematical certainties of a Hillary win and so on. Everybody knows the pollsters blew it then.

What?s different now? Anything?

Not really. Not fundamentally.

There were shy Trump voters in 2016 that pollsters couldn?t pick up. There are just as many now. Probably more ? if anything the Left has been more oppressive and more fearsome in its attempts to shame and disparage Trump voters where it can. Deranged Democrats are recording themselves vandalizing Trump signs, some even on private property. Cars with Trump bumper stickers get keyed. People attack strangers for wearing MAGA hats.

What we found out in 2016 is those tactics don?t persuade people not to vote for Trump. Such tactics drive those votes underground, and they resurface in the secrecy of the voting booth. There is no penalty for straight-up lying to a pollster, at least not yet.

In 2016 it was Hillary Clinton calling those voters deplorables. This year it?s Antifa beating them up in the streets.

Do you not think Trump?s voters are even more shy than they were before?

Enthusiasm is if anything even greater than it was in 2016 among uncloseted Trump voters, but for quieter voters, genuine physical fear of being outed as a Trump voter must be greater than it was four years ago.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on October 08, 2020 (boomark / email).