It’s fairly well known that many Americans won’t reveal their support for President Trump to pollsters. Add to this the polling-organization tendency to oversample Democrats, and it makes many suspect that data showing Joe Biden leading the presidential race are deceptive. Such a phenomenon was apparent in 2016, after all, when polls indicated a Hillary Clinton victory. But one recent poll may reveal the truth, not by asking people whom they support, but something else:
Whom do you think will win the election?
Conducted by Gallup, the research shows that in “polling conducted over the two weeks leading up to the first presidential debate, President Donald Trump’s job approval rating is 46%, its highest point since May.”
Now, this is “still short of the majority approval that incumbent presidents typically need in order to be confident of reelection,” Gallup continues. Yet here’s where it gets interesting:
“Regardless of whom they personally support,” however, “56% of Americans expect Trump to prevail over Biden in the November election, while 40% think Biden will win,” Gallup also informs.
“Although majorities of partisans think their party’s candidate will win, Republicans are more likely to believe Trump will win (90%) than Democrats are to think Biden will (73%),” the polling outfit elaborates. “Fifty-six percent of independents predict that Trump will win.”
This could be significant. As American Thinker theorizes:
With this type of question, voters may let their guards down and provide a truthful answer. Since the pollster didn’t ask for whom they were voting, Trump voters may feel more at ease by subtly providing their real voting preference to a stranger via this indirect phrasing of the question. Since Antifa and other far-left groups have actively doxxed and attacked Trump-supporters, it makes sense that these voters would hesitate to answer the straightforward “whom are you voting for” question truthfully.
It is astounding that this poll did not receive attention from pro-Trump conservative media. And now that the president has tested positive for the coronavirus and is being treated at Walter Reed Hospital, the data may have changed somewhat. Even so, a 16-point gap in Trump’s favor as to voters’ feelings about the election result is significant and worthy of discussion. If this polling question accurately reflects the electorate’s mood, then the Biden campaign should be concerned.
There’s yet another reason to attach significance to this result. Voters may be willing to lie to pollsters, either due to social pressure or, as I’ve heard conservatives confess, to “mess with them.” (I’ve warned against this, as polls predicting Democrat victories are used to demoralize Republicans and thus suppress their vote.) But asking voters about their predictions doesn’t just in all likelihood eliminate this factor — it also may engage their egos because people don’t like being wrong, thus encouraging honest answers.
Moreover, another reason this question may reflect hidden Trump support is that many people’s political predictions are driven by their own wishful thinking.
Also notable here is that 56 percent of independents predict a Trump victory. Remember that with large portions of the electorate reflexively voting Democrat or Republican, it is undecided voters — heavily represented in the “independent” group — who determine the victor. Thus, if their choice translates into a 56-44 preference for Trump (and “if” is the operative word), it bodes well for the president.
Then there’s one more polling result that may augur a Trump victory. Gallup also asked Americans whether they approve of the president’s handling of six issues. “The economy is the only one with majority-level approval (54%), marking an improvement from 47% and 48% readings in early June and mid-August,” the organization writes.
(Trump is underwater on the other issues. “These include crime (48%), foreign affairs (46%), relations with China (46%), response to the coronavirus (44%) and race relations (38%),” Gallup tells us.)
Since people tend to “vote their pocketbooks,” being in positive territory on the economy is a good sign for any president.
That said, one thing the coming election will surely share with 2016’s is that it will be like no other. It’s not just that the Left is pulling out all the stops to demonize Trump, but also that Big Tech manipulation and vote fraud together have the capacity to shift upwards of 15 million votes. And while the hidden Trump support is hard to gauge with polls, they cannot calculate the latter factor at all.
This is normally where an analyst would say, “We’ll know on Election Day.” But with wide scale mail-in voting poised to create mayhem and delay the result, even this is something we can no longer count on.
