Political Polls and Sandbagging

As I watched the news yesterday, there was plenty of discussion about the latest political polling. For Democrats it was heartening and hopeful; there is a wide margin of nearly 13 points between those leaning Democratic versus Republican in critical House seats up for grabs.

Chris Matthews hearkened back to an April prediction whereby the Democrats would pick up 30-40 seats in the upcoming election.

And then I remembered 2016. Maybe it is simply a political version of post traumatic stress, but I started to discount the polling for the same reasons I have said all along that we are facing a monumental task. This is not an uphill battle, it is trying to summit K2 without a guide.

Why such distrust over polls? Because the more these polls come out, the clearer it becomes to me that either the polling is flawed in its methodology, or someone is lying to pollsters. Having been through plenty of college calculus and statistics courses, I doubt sincerely that the methodology is flawed.

Sure, maybe some of the questions are silly and lead to a desired conclusion depending on which organization is conducting the poll, but the results of most are almost always statistically significant.

That leaves lying. Take a close look around. Read comments not on silly things like Yahoo! articles, but at the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Read the comments of political stories and you will get a very real sense that there are a lot of closeted Trump supporters. They know they are not 'supposed' to like him; yet they quietly do. Maybe it's because they identify with those who feel that they are losing their grip on power; maybe it is because they like his 'tough guy stance' and some probably like him because they believe he is good for their wallets.

No matter what the reason, there are a lot of pro-Trump feelings in places which make me question the polls. The only real 'Democrat' responses I seem to see are 'Vote. Remember to Vote." The pro-Trump comments (though often wrong) at least take the time to diligently criticize the Democratic platform and everything for which we stand. They almost always end with their favorite quotes of either "Libtards are going crazy" or that the "left is completely unhinged and I love it."

The reality is that there are Trump supporters out there sandbagging pollsters. Why? To suppress our message and our activism. People become complacent when they think they have things 'wrapped up." We see it in sports and I think we saw it in 2016. We became complacent and not enough people voted.

Don't believe for one second any poll you see. It is a fallacy created by sandbagging Trump supporters to continue to suppress and oppress the majority of this nation. I won't implore anyone to vote; but I will implore that we sincerely take into account that a poll relies on those being polled to be honest. If they are not being honest and we get complacent, we will lose for generations to come.

Don't simply take the polls as some sort of inherent truth - make them the truth.