The mystery of the ‘secret non-Trump voter’
IF there’s anything we’ve learned about American politics in the age of Trump it is this: the pollsters almost always get it wrong.
When the billionaire real estate developer first burst on to the political scene nine years ago, public opinion surveys tended to undercount his supporters, suggesting there were “secret Trump voters” who were too abashed to publicly admit their preference for a candidate so divisive.
But a strange thing has happened on the way to the 2024 Republican convention. The pollsters are still getting it wrong, but in the other direction.
Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump had underperformed the published polls in every big primary contest. In New Hampshire, surveys ahead of the primary showed the former president beating his last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, by nearly 18 percentage points; he won by 11. In South Carolina, he was polling 28 points ahead of Haley, but he won by 20. In Michigan, the polls said 57, but he won by a “mere” 42.
Even as he romped to victory on Super Tuesday, Trump continued to show a striking ability to attract Republican voters at a significantly lower rate than anticipated.
Take Virginia, a state that was closely watched on the night because the Haley camp thought she could peel off moderate Republicans and independents in the northern suburbs that border Washington, DC. In surveys ahead of the vote, Trump was consistently 60 points ahead of Haley, who was the preference of only about 15 per cent of Republicans surveyed. Instead, Haley finished with nearly 35 per cent of the vote, pulling to within 30 points of Trump.
The feat was repeated all over the Super Tuesday map. In some states, the difference was eyepopping. In Vermont, the final big poll published before Tuesday’s vote had Trump ahead 61-31. Instead, Haley won. In other states, such as Texas, the Trump slump between pollsters and voters was barely 5 percentage points.
Taken individually, the results could be caveated away. Some of these states were very lightly polled ahead of election day; others held “open” primaries that allowed Democrats to cast ballots in the Republican contest. But taken together, a pattern is emerging: instead of a “secret Trump voter”, there appears to be a “secret non-Trump voter” wandering the countryside.
The first thing to say about “secret non-Trump voters” is that their existence should not come as a surprise. They were out in force during the 2022 midterm elections, where a Republican party that was expected to rack up huge majorities in the House of Representatives and take back control of the Senate did neither.
The second is that they seem to congregate in prosperous suburbs that have traditionally been prime hunting grounds for Republican candidates. With their desire for low taxes and light-touch regulation, American suburbs have been natural Republican constituencies, especially at a time of voter malaise about the US economy. But Trump’s erratic behaviour and contempt for democratic norms have produced a notable shift in suburban voting patterns.
There is also mounting evidence that Republican women in these suburbs have turned against Trump in even greater numbers because of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn abortion rights. Indeed, even in rockribbed Republican constituencies, there are reports of women increasingly fearful about accessing basic obstetric and gynaecological procedures in a legally precarious environment for their physicians. It’s not hard to see why they might vote against Trump, but keep their intentions hidden from pollsters.
The Trump team was right to be in a triumphant mood after thumping victories across the Super Tuesday map. But the results also revealed a soft underbelly to the former president’s candidacy. It is in the suburbs that the 2024 election will be won or lost. Once solidly Republican communities on the outskirts of Atlanta, Philadelphia and Phoenix are no longer solid. If these “secret non-Trump voters” show up for Joe Biden in November, the pollsters who are now showing the sitting president falling behind his predecessor will be proven wrong again.