Steve Bannon still has another month to go in his prison sentence, but the tactic he helped unleash — to "flood the zone with sh*t" — is, unfortunately, alive and well this Presidential election. It's known among us Democrats as "red-wave polling," and what it does it make polling averages skewed and unreliable.
Republicans did this back in the 2022 midterms, and they successfully suckered pundits and analysts who should have known better into predicting a GOP wipeout. As you know, that didn't happen. The House of Representatives flipped from our control, but by a very tight margin, and the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision clearly played a big role. So all those lazy journos and talking heads ended up with egg-covered faces. A word of caution, however:
"This problem is still with us in 2024, and it may be about to become a serious problem," says Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. He has a list of nearly 20 right-wing or GOP-leaning polls that are trying mightily to shift the poll averages to Benedict Donald, including Fox News, McLaughlin, Public Opinion Strategies, and Trafalgar, just to name a few. Unsurprisingly, they're especially active in trying to skew perceptions of the race in North Carolina, a make-or-break state for Trump.
"This close to an election, spending money on anything other than things that help you win is an extravagance," Rosenberg says. "Thus, the right must view spending so much money on these polls as something that helps them win, which makes them a new form of partisan political activity — not 'polling' as we understand it."
It would be nice if the media would start recognizing and acknowledging this phenomenon, especially after the embarrassment they suffered two years ago. But holding out hope for any kind of intelligent political analysis from today's so-called journalists is probably a waste of time.
In the meantime, then, while we're not the types to say "Ignore all the polls," at least keep red-wave polling in mind when you see cable news performers tout the tightness of the race or an alleged shift to Republicans. It's in their interest because they want eyeballs, likes, and clicks. And obviously it's in the Trumpsters' interest because they're anxious to suppress an enthusiastic early vote for Harris-Walz.
What can we do about all this? "Support our candidates, outhustle the Republicans, run up the score in the early vote, and go win this election, together," Rosenberg says. We cats PURR.
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