The folly of poll-dependent commentary

My dim view of polling a year out from the election is no secret. To illustrate the foolishness of building punditry around meaningless, premature polling, consider what would unfold if pundits ran with a spate of recent polling in President Joe Biden’s favor.

Democratic consultant Simon Rosenberg pointed out on his website that four recent polls show Biden with small leads over fourtime indicted former president Donald Trump:

■ 44 percent-42 percent Economist/YouGov; Trump led 43 percent-42 percent in mid-November

■ 43 percent-42 percent Morning Consult; Trump led 44 percent-41 percent the prior week

■ 39 percent-37 percent YouGov (this is a separate poll by the same firm)

■ 37 percent-35 percent Leger/ The Canadian Press

Rosenberg pointed out that in the Morning Consult poll, Biden gained four percentage points over the prior week, and he gained three percentage points in the Economist/YouGov poll.

Consider also a recent, mammoth survey of young voters. This comes amid a raft of “analysis” declaring Biden had lost young voters, in part because of his handling of the Israel-Gaza war. “Among youth who say they’re extremely likely to vote, 51% prefer a Democratic candidate in 2024, 30% a Republican, and 16% are undecided,” the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University found in a poll of 2,017 Americans ages 18 to 34. “Among all youth, regardless of likelihood to vote, 37% say they’ll vote for a Democrat, 25% a Republican, and nearly a third (31%) say they don’t yet know who they’ll support.” By comparison, Biden won in 2020 voters younger than 30 by 24 points and those aged 30 through 44 by only six points.

Now imagine if, as the mainstream media did when the New York Times released a poll showing Biden trailing in five of six key battleground states (improbably showing Biden leading among 18- to 29-year-olds by only one point and trailing among 30- to 44-year-olds), the media blanketed the airwaves and splashed these findings over the front pages for days on end. We would see headlines such as: “Biden rebounds with young voters!” and “Trump lead collapses!”

Cable TV panels would explain how Trump’s fascist references, his threats directed at judges and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin were finally backfiring. We’d hear that Bidenomics, far from being a political dud, was not only an economic winner but a political tour de force. Vice President Kamala Harris’s “Fight for our Freedoms College Tour” in seven states had ignited enthusiasm among young people, more than proving her value to the ticket, pundits would explain.

Then we would have a raft of “Republicans panic” stories in which Republicans confessed they knew Trump was a disaster but had no way of offloading him. Republican donors would be quizzed about their reluctance to give money to someone “losing” the race. Republicans would fret over the lack of a “Plan B.” Republican consultants would bemoan the failure of the “age issue” to damage Biden. Leaks from the Trump camp would explain that the candidate had gone into an emotional tailspin. (Maybe even stopped eating?) And this would go on for days and days, coloring virtually all coverage of the campaign.

Well, you say, this is all preposterous. These polls are within the margin of error. Moreover, we are a year away from the race. That is my point exactly. It would be absurd to rationalize data of questionable value to pontificate with great certainty about the state of the race. The exact problem exists with regard to polling showing Trump ahead but largely within the margin of error, especially with only a few hundred respondents and a larger margin of error than, say, the poll from Tufts’ civic center.

Political reporters are so used to this flawed approach to campaign coverage that many might be stumped if you told them they could not base their reporting on any polling this far out. But what would we say?! As media critic and New York University professor Jay Rosen is found of saying, they would need to cover “not the odds but the stakes.”

In other words, the mainstream media would have to focus (not just for a single story but extended over weeks) on the consequences of electing a candidate echoing Adolf Hitler and vowing to use the military and Justice Department against his enemies. They would have to look not at polling about the economy but the actual economic record of the administration (e.g., inflation flattened, more than 14 million jobs created, record low unemployment for Black people, Hispanics and women). They would need to examine the decisions of Trump-appointed judges and the social uproar it set off, especially among women in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

In sum, the electorate would be much better served if the punditocracy and political reporting dispensed with horse race and analysis. Our democracy might depend on it.