Polling: less and less meaningful, except more indpendents

A poll this week by Gallup discovered a shift in 2021 to the Republican side, from Democrats and independents. I did not find it meaningful. I think it is a reflection of disappointment toward Biden and Democrats in the Senate. Or, the entire poll number could be related to mask and vaccine mandates. I have a book that explains that when they call people on the phone for polls, only the events in the past couple of weeks are on the mind of most people. This holds even more for people disinterested in politics but interested just enough to show up to vote.

Suppose we ran an election now. Trump vs. Biden. The pandemic and mandates are a momentary issue. Centrists may have changed their minds after voting for Biden. But, I seriously doubt there is any major change if there are the same two candidates. Here is the current graph on Trump. It may be that hatred of Biden has increased, though, so for that reason there may be more Republicans.

But the Democrats and Republicans do not matter when voters hate the parties and hate congress, that has these two parties and does not seem to be do anything. Young people are hard to recruit for either party. This would be a great time to introduce a third party. Except, our system seems to favor two parties, not a coalition of parties. But our two party system took us to a divided congress, and without 60 votes, nothing will pass in the senate. Excepting Mitch McConnel judicial candidates.

The independents do not have any deep interest in politics. I think the party members vote by party and the independents by gut feel for a candidate. They are not going to vote for Trump but will only reluctantly vote for Biden. 

But the topic was polls. I say ignore the polls until there are actual candidates running. For president look at the states that have been borderline: Wisconsin, Georgia, PA and Arizona. Arizona may be lost, but Trump will not carry PA and WI. We will get a Democrat in 2024 but with a Republican congress. If we are in a stalemate, that is the one I prefer. Unless of course in 2 years Congress strips a president of his powers. Then we are in trouble in 2025.

I only wanted to address polling this time. The voting rights is a bigger problem.