Tag Archives: polling

national news, political news

Polls aren’t predictors

I have to remind myself of an important fact as I ponder these public opinion polls showing President Biden possibly losing his re-election bid to the leading Republican challenger.

It is that the polls are not predictors of what will happen many months from now, but merely are snapshots of the public’s mood in the moment. What does that mean? It means that circumstances can change the public mood in dramatic fashion.

And, oh Lord, there are factors a-plenty out there that could change the minds of millions of Americans preparing to cast their votes for president.

We have several trials awaiting the GOP frontrunner. They are a dizzying array of felony charges. The former POTUS could be convicted of any of the felonies, from one accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, to hiding classified documents in his posh digs in south Florida, to pressuring election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to award him that state’s electoral votes.

If a jury convicts him of any of them, he no longer can run for public office, let alone serve in the one he seeks. It’s on the books, man.

That means voters who currently favor the former POTUS in his bid to return to the office from which he was drummed out in 2020 will have to make decide whether they really want to vote for a convicted felon to become commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

The ex-POTUS can yelp and yammer all he wants about whatever decisions come down. The facts, though, will stand on the record forever if he is convicted of any of the serious charges that have been leveled against him.

President Biden has been a national politician for more than five decades. He knows his way around the political pea patch and no doubt will be able to exploit the obvious flaws in his opponent’s record … presuming, of course, that Republicans are foolish and stupid enough to nominate him.

Am I worried, therefore, about what these polls are telling us today? Nope. The worry will kick in on election eve if they are delivering the same message.

God help us if that occurs.

political news

Pollsters deserve a break

Political polling organizations have been taking their lumps over the past several years from those who mistakenly — I believe — contend they are wrong far more than they are right.

Pollsters need some respect and I am about to give them some.

The major incident polling critics cite is the result of the 2016 presidential election. I truly beg to differ.

Let’s remember that polling outfits tracked the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hourly right to the end. Most of them placed Hillary Clinton marginally ahead of Trump in the final results released just before Election Day.

Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Her margin of “victory”? 2.09% That matches just about what all the pollsters said would occur. They were right!

Except that the popular vote doesn’t elect presidents. That is done through the Electoral College and Trump managed to peel off at least three states that everyone thought would fall into Clinton’s vote ledger: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Did those states’ results negate what the national polling said would occur? No. It meant only that Clinton’s team misjudged the level of support she and Trump had; they overplayed their own hand and low-balled Trump’s support.

The 2020 election also produced a result that pollsters said would occur. Joe Biden carried the day with a 4.46% popular vote margin over Trump. He also took back the three states I mentioned earlier to seal the victory.

Polling at times can be an inexact exercise. Respondents have been known to tell pollsters untruths when they are asked, “For whom will you vote for president?”

However, in the past two presidential election cycles, pollsters have gotten a bum rap. I want to stand with them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Is he ‘best’ we can offer?

I happen to believe in public opinion political surveys, even if they produce results that confound me. I am no expert on polling, but I do know that the best surveys are done without bias and they seek to reach the broadest sample of respondents possible.

That all said, I am officially beyond all reason at surveys that continue to show Donald J. Trump to be Republicansā€™ favorite for the 2024 presidential nomination. Why the confusion, the bafflement, the dizzying emotions?

Allow me to list some aspects of The Donaldā€™s life in and out of politics. To wit:

  • He has admitted to mauling women, to assaulting them sexually because of his ā€œfame.ā€
  • While campaigning for president, he mocked a physically disabled New York Times reporter.
  • He denigrated a Gold Star family, whose son died in combat during the Iraq War; the family happens to be Muslim.
  • Trump also denigrated the late Sen. John McCainā€™s heroism during the Vietnam War because, he said, McCain was a ā€œhero only because he was captured. I like people who arenā€™t captured, OK?ā€
  • He has admitted to cheating on his first two wives and was accused of taking part in a one-time tumble with a porn star shortly after his third wife gave birth to the coupleā€™s son.
  • He claims to be a man of faith, but denies a basic Christian tenet of seeking forgiveness; he said he never has sought to be forgiven for any sin he has committed.
  • Trump told a former associate that anyone who served during the Vietnam War was ā€œstupid,ā€ because the war was so politically unpopular at home.
  • He cannot tell the truth; Trump lies about ā€¦ everything.

I am likely missing something, but you get my drift, I am sure.

It is this, for those to whom I should explain: If we are going to insist on restoring American ā€œgreatness,ā€ is this the man we should follow down that path? Does this individual appear to the best we have to offer?

No! A thousand times no! He embodies the worst among us and for that reason I am totally and completely baffled as to how this cult leader manages to hold such sway with so many Americans.

I am shaking my head in disbelief.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, media news, medical news, national news

Polling data: What does it say?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Public opinion polling has been vilified over the course of recent election cycles, frankly for reasons that astound me.

Major public opinion polls actually had the 2016 presidential election called correctly when they had Hillary Clinton edging Donald Trump; they didn’t foresee the so-called “inside straight” that propelled Trump into the presidency on the basis of his narrow Electoral College victory.

They also called the 2020 presidential election correctly, giving Joe Biden a victory in both the ballot count and the Electoral College.

Still, the critics keep lambasting those polls.

Here we are today. President Biden pitched a massive COVID-19 relief bill that had significant public support. He got it enacted over the objection of every single Republican member of Congress … in both chambers!

Biden is back at it. He now has an even larger package on the table, a $2.25 trillion infrastructure reform package. The public response? Even greater than it was with the COVID relief package. The congressional Republican reaction? Precisely the same as the GOP resistance to lending a hand to those suffering from the economic wreckage brought by the pandemic.

Who, again, is on the right side?

It is looking to me as though the Republican congressional leadership and rank-and-file are not listening to the individuals they represent. They are ignoring the wishes of those who put them into office. The public favors rebuilding our roads, highways, bridges, ports (sea and air) and in buttressing our Internet broadband capability.

What’s going on here? Is the GOP political class listening exclusively to a narrow portion of its constituency? I am left to wonder if congressional Republicans will pay a political price when the midterm election rolls around next year.

They damn near should pay it!

Public opinion polling isn’t a perfect barometer of the national mood. However, it is far more accurate than its critics are wiling to admit. The GOP needs to pay attention.

political news, State news

Texas becomes battleground?

The national political media continue feed my heebie-jeebies.

They talk about Joe Biden’s national polling lead over Donald Trump. They suggest there might be a Democratic “tsunami” about to sweep Trump and many of his Republican congressional sycophants out of office in Washington.

Why, many commentators are looking at a recent Dallas Morning News/University of Texas-Tyler poll that puts the former vice president up by 5 percentage points over Trump. They use that poll result as evidence that Texas is about to cast its electoral votes for the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Whoa, now! Let’s hold on. Let’s catch our breath.

I am not yet ready to toss Texas into the Democrats’ sack of political goodies. This is among the reddest Republican states in the country. Every statewide elected official here is a Republican. It’s been an all-R state since 1998. The state’s transition from overwhelming Democrat to Republican has been stunning in the speed with which it occurred.

Is Joe Biden the Democratic presidential candidate to carry Texas across a new threshold? Hmm. I have trouble believing it, although my heart wishes it would happen.

As the Dallas Morning News reported: ā€œI really do think that Biden could win Texas, and I didnā€™t think that as recently as even a month ago. But the landscape has shifted so much,ā€ said Nancy Beck Young, chair of the University of Houston history department and a scholar of Texas politics.

The Morning News poll does suggest that since Texas is being stricken so cruelly by the COVID crisis that Texans at this moment are enraged by Trump’s feckless and reckless response to the emergency. That well might be reflected in the polling results.

I think it’s fair to suggest, though, that if Biden somehow manages to win more votes than Trump in Texas then we are looking at an epic political landslide that will bury Trump. Moreover, if Biden falls short by just a little bit — say, 2 or 3 percentage points — then that, too, might portend a significant political defeat for Donald Trump nationally.

Still, the media keep fueling my nervousness. I get that’s the media’s job. It is to report the news and polling statistics that suggest a staggering defeat of the self-proclaimed “smartest man in human history” — or words to that effect — most certainly should get our attention.

media news

Et tu, Fox News Channel?

You can quibble till the paint dries about the quality of Fox News Channel’s political coverage. I do on occasion. The network that calls itself “fair and balance” is neither of those things.

However, news hands at FNC are capable of doing good work. They conduct public opinion polling on occasion that raises an eyebrow or two, such as a recent poll showing how Donald Trump matches up against his Democratic opponents.

The most recent Fox poll shows the president, for instance, trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by a margin well outside the margin of error.

The president’s response? He went after the “friendly” network, suggesting it has gone to the dark side by casting him in a negative light. The poll has him “losing big to Sleepy Joe,” Trump said on Twitter.

Good grief, dude. Take a rest from the Twitter machine. I mean, you’ve got important work to do. You are seeking to make America great again, isn’t that right, Mr. President? These constant Twitter tirades make America laughable.

As for what the polls are saying more than a year away from the next election, I’ll answer with two words: President Dukakis.

In 1988, polling had the Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis about 17 points ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush heading into that year’s election campaign season. The election, um, didn’t turn out that way ā€¦ you know?

Don’t misunderstand me. I do not want Trump to turn those polls around. If anything, I hope whoever he faces next fall widens the gap and trounces the incumbent badly. He needs to back to ā€¦ wherever.

So, the president needs to chill out. Get to work. Quit busying yourself with idiotic tweets and assorted blathering about polls with which you disagree.

media news

Such ignorance about the First Amendment …

Here’s a bit of unsettling news: 44 percent of Republicans believe Donald Trump should have the authority to shutter news outlets for “bad behavior; what’s more, 12 percent of Democrats share that idiotic view.

The polling was done by Ipsos and it sends a chill up my spine. It should send tremors throughout the nation.

The president is angry with media outlets that report news he finds disagreeable. He has implied a desire to close them down if they continue to report completely the news about his administration.

Let me remind us all here about something that needs no reminder: The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the media from this kind of government interference, intimidation and intolerance.

It speaks to freedom of religion, political expression, peaceable assembly and a “free press.”

The First Amendment says Congress shall “make no law” that interferes with a free press. Period. End of story.

Yet nearly half of GOP voters and more than a tenth of Democrats think it’s OK for the president to coerce the media and shut ’em down if they p** him off.

Frightening, man.

national news

Trump needs help coping with his delusion

Donald Trump’s delusion is well-chronicled.

He keeps touting all the “success” he has enjoyed since becoming president of the United States. Trump keeps lying about having passed more legislation than any president in history.

If matters were going as swimmingly as Trump keeps insisting, then I am forced to ask this fundamental question:

Why do polls keep showing a tangible, real distrust among Americans?

The RealClearPolitics average of polls now stands at 39.3 percent approval of the president; 56.2 percent of Americans polled disapprove of the way he is doing his job.

I mention the RCP poll average because of its reliability. It factors in all leading public opinion surveys and averages them out. As near as I can tell, 39.3 percent approval stinks.

If I were in Donald Trump’s shoes, I’d be mighty concerned about it. I also would exhibit a ton of reticence in talking about the phony success rates.

This guy doesn’t get any of it. He doesn’t know most Americans feel about him. Sure, he has his base. The diehard Trumpkins around the country are standing by their man. The president is feeding off of that and conflating their support for his policies with the national mood — which reality should tell him doesn’t reflect the infatuation of those among his political base.

Indeed, the president is delusional.

media news

Obama’s poll numbers spiking in final days

IĀ have a good timeĀ following certain public opinion polling sites, my favorite of which is the RealClearPolitics average of polls.

Here’s what it shows now about President Obama’s poll standing among Americans: The nation is falling back in love with the guy.

The average of polls shows Obama’s standing at 57 percent. There’s now an 18-percentage-point spread between the “favorable” and “unfavorable” ratings.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

How does the poll average rate Congress? It’s about 14 percent. Interesting, yes?

Why the poll spike for the president? It might have something to do with how voters view him in relation to the man who will succeed him in just a couple of days.

He’s conducting himself with remarkable calm, grace, dignity. Donald J. Trump, meanwhile, is continuing to lash out at his foes, the media, almost anyone who makes a critical statement.

What’s not to admire about a president who is leaving the stage with such style?

media news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Polling put to a new kind of test this election cycle

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The media obsession with polls, “horse races” and determining who’s up and/or down continues.

The Hill has given us the latest read on how this presidential campaign will turn out.

The conclusion? Polling data may be skewed beyond all recognition because of the high unfavorable ratings of both major-party nominees-to-be.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/281910-doubts-creep-into-trump-clinton-polls

The pollsters are having difficulty taking their findings to the bank. Republican presumptive nominee Donald J. Trump’s favorable ratings are in the tank; Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s plus-side scores are right behind Trump’s.

Voters’ fickleness puts more guesswork into the polling, according to The Hill.

Will it be a high-turnout or low-turnout election? My own guess is that it’ll be the latter. Voters might decide the choices between the major-party picks are so dismal that they’ll just sit it out. They might not want to consider a third option because that ticket has no chance of winning.

Then again …

Some pollsters think the turnout will be high as voters are motivated to vote against the other candidate.

The anti-Clinton voter bloc will be set to vote for Trump. And vice versa.

All of this seems to be the ingredients tailor-madeĀ for a patently miserable campaign.

Hey, hasn’t Trump himself declared he has no intention to “change”?

My fellow Americans … we are in for a rough ride to the finish line.