If you waste too much time on social media as many of us do, you’ve probably noticed a lot of doomers, black pillers, and naysayers moaning about the polls right now. “It’s all over! Kamala is winning! Abandon all hope! We have been forced to eat Fluffy! I do not think we shall survive the winter!”
Listen, guys—calm down. Take a breath. You guys obviously weren’t around for the ride in 2016.
Is Kamala Harris leading in nearly every poll right now? Yes, she is. And you believe the polls because…?
Before we even get to the ridiculously silly polls from this year, let’s take a trip down memory lane.
In August 2016, Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump by +8% in the average of all national polls. She was way ahead of Trump in the polls, so the race was basically over as far as the media was concerned. The Economist wrote an article that month stating that all Republicans are “repelled” by Donald Trump. With just a couple of months to go until the election, Trump was doomed!
Although that article in the Economist did contain this hilarious line, which should have been a clue:
“She [Hillary] is an amazingly poor orator, considering her long record and her easy charm in private, with a default shouting mode that would grate less if she would at least shout in the right places.”
On August 7, 2016, an ABC News poll showed Hillary Clinton with a +23% lead over Trump among women.
On August 26, 2016, the Washington Post wrote, “Every major indicator and poll shows Hillary Clinton winning the presidency.”
Politico ran a story that month stating that “Republican insiders” in 11 swing states had all told them, Donald Trump has no path to 270 electoral votes. It was all over. Trump could not possibly become the next president.
A quick comparison to today: According to the RealClearPolitics average of all the polls in the country right now, Kamala Harris is leading by +1.8% over Trump. There are no +8% or +23% margins for Kamala anywhere.
We’ll come back to that.
On October 23, 2016, ABC News called the race for Hillary Clinton. In an ABC News tracking poll released that day, Hillary was leading Trump 50% to 38%.
The media was jubilant. “Prepare to meet your DOOM, Trump-tards!”
On the morning of the 2016 election, the polling outfit 538 made a big announcement. There was a 95% chance that everyone would wake up the next day to a Hillary Clinton presidency.
For those who don’t recall what happened, Hillary Clinton has never been president. Trump won the electoral college vote 57% to 42%. The polls weren’t even close. Trump even won Wisconsin without any help from Paul Ryan, a state that Democrats had carried for the seven previous presidential elections.
At the end of August 2024, the RealClearPolitics average has Kamala Harris up +1.7% in Michigan. A brand-new poll from Activote shows Harris and Trump in a 50-50 tie in Michigan.
When we dig down into the nitty-gritty details of this Activote poll, it tells a very interesting story. We’re using this specific Activote poll because it’s the very latest one, but what you’re about to learn holds true for most polls.
The outlet reveals the political leanings of the people it polled in the demographics section. 15% of the people they polled were Independents, 30% were Republicans, and 55% were Democrats. They oversampled Democrats by 25%. Another way of looking at that is for every 100 Republicans they polled, they talked to 125 Democrats.
The reason why Activote had to oversample Democrats was because 21% of Democrat voters in Michigan told them they were voting for Donald Trump! Among Independents, the results were a bloodbath. Trump leads Independents in Michigan with 57% of the vote in this poll.
They had to oversample Democrats by 25% just to make it appear that Kamala is tied with Trump in Michigan. So many Democrats are telling pollsters that they’re voting for Trump that they would have to oversample Democrats by 50% to fabricate a +8 Kamala lead (like they did with Hillary in 2016).
Fear not, doomers and naysayers! You shall survive the winter! And please don’t eat Fluffy!
This ain’t our first rodeo—and God did not spare President Trump from an assassin’s bullet to have him come in second place this November.
