By Joe Guzzardi
In 1964, I cast my first presidential ballot for Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
Since that election, 15-four-year cycles, I’ve been a registered Republican, a registered Democrat, and a registered Independent. I have lived in New York, California, Washington, and Pennsylvania. At no time did I ever miss in-person voting which must, I assume, qualify me among pollsters as “a likely voter.”
Yet during the last six decades, I have never received a telephone call from a pollster asking me for whom I planned to vote. Moreover, after I inquired, I learned that no family member, friend, neighbor, or work colleague has been polled.
Who, then, is polled? Given my long-standing experience as a confirmed but never polled voter, I wonder what the non-stop fuss in print media and television is all about: “Harris is up two points in Wisconsin, but down two points in Michigan!” or “Trump is up four in North Carolina and gaining in Arizona.” Comparable stories not only have headlined but consumed most of the print ink or broadcast air with one talking head after another chattering predictable points that depend on their political leaning.
Since the 2016 and 2020 polls were dramatically off the mark, no one should put any credibility in the 2024 election predictions.
In 2016, Donald J. Trump’s victory shocked many Americans, especially pollsters who showed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, leading the race up right up to Election Day. All data they were looking at seemed to predict her victory. Clinton’s campaign, confident she would win, had the champagne ready to pop. But Trump, who disdained data gathering, carried swing states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Democrats thought were in the bag.
After the ballots were counted, Trump had won 306 electoral votes, compared to Clinton’s 232, securing him the presidency. The pollsters offered weak excuses for their embarrassing failures including a farfetched claim that the results were skewed by whether a male or female picked up the phone.
The 2016 misfire was supposed to serve as a wake-up call for pollsters, but it did not. The 2020 election would be, according to the polling, an easy Joe Biden victory. But Biden won by only three points versus his projected margin of eight – another humbling for the touted polling industry.
Pollsters have spent the years since 2020 experimenting with ways to induce hard-to-reach voters to participate in surveys and testing statistical techniques to improve accuracy. But expert opinion is mixed on whether polling outcomes are due for a repeat of 2020, which a professional association of pollsters called the most inaccurate in 40 years. New developments, such as the shift of black and Latino voters away from Democrats and toward Republicans and the increase of online surveys that use unproven sampling methods create additional potential for error.
Referring to 2024’s polling reliability, Stanford University political scientist Jon Krosnick said, “We are headed for more disaster.”
Pollsters do a better job of identifying the core issues that worry voters. The numbers one and two are the economy and immigration. But neither the polling organizations nor the candidates have comprehensively linked the two.
Immigration directly impacts federal, state, and local economies. In March 2023, three years into the ongoing four-year invasion, the Federation for American Immigration Reform published its study, “The Total Fiscal Cost of Illegal Immigration.” The nonprofit estimated that, at the time of its report, 15.5 million illegal immigrants resided in the U.S. Beginning in 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration to the U.S., including K-12 education, emergency medical care, and other affirmative benefits, is at least $150 billion. Subtracting the tax revenue that illegal aliens pay, just under $32 billion, from the gross negative cost of illegal immigration, $182 billion, the think tank arrived at its $150 billion total.
Eighteen months have passed since their report was published, and millions more illegal aliens have entered with taxpayers funding every step they take once inside the U.S.
The Biden-Harris administration has given the green light to millions of unvetted illegal aliens who have unlawfully crossed or, unprecedented, been flown into the interior via the unconstitutional program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that admits 30,000 foreign nationals monthly.
Voters who consider the economy their main concern should realize that unchecked immigration contributes to high living costs including the tax hikes necessary to pay billions for illegal aliens’ resettlement.
Joe Guzzardi writes for the Washington, D.C.-based Progressives for Immigration Reform. A newspaper columnist for 30 years, Joe writes about immigration and related social issues.
JimboXYZ says
Polls won’t matter in a few days in another week anyway. not that they ever mattered. Saddest part of elections, still getting campaign donation spam days ahead of the election. It’s more about spending money on false advertising & influence that really is a no value added cost to Government. That money would be better utilized to a number of causes. Like TS Carolina’s Hurricane Helene Relief efforts or even closer to home Milton debris removal around the neighborhoods that has seemed to have not happened. Yet, the garbage collection contract we have hasn’t done anything about removing debris. That was what, 3 weeks ago for Milton (10/10/2024). Didn’t Alfin end up getting the best service for waste ? The quality of life in Bidenomics inflationary economy just gets better for service doesn’t it in Palm Coast. Gut feeling 2025 will just be worse for actual service with Harris-Walz. America needs to get back on track put 4 years of the fraud of Biden-Harris behind. What a waste o 4 years of anyone’s lifetime, we’re gonna want that time back, regrets of 2020-present.
Wallingford says
One thing that the pollsters have correct is the fact that Trump is not qualified to be President – mentally, health wise, and legally as a convicted felon. Marco Rubio said “friends don’t let friends vote for Trump; friends don’t let friends vote for a con man.” Forensic Psychiatrists deem that he has psychopathic personality disorder, malignant Narcissism, paranoia.
Pogo says
@Joe Guzzardi
I see you; as stated:
The Extremist Campaign to Blame Immigrants for U.S. Environmental Problems
Anti-immigrant rhetoric stemming from discredited pseudoscience has evolved into an extreme right-wing greenwashing effort that the modern conservation movement is right to reject.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/extremist-campaign-blame-immigrants-u-s-environmental-problems/
Joe says
The average of the 2o16 and 2020 polls were very accurate and within the margin of error.
The average of hundreds of polls conducted before the 2020 Presidential election was spot on for Biden and within the margin of error for Trump.
The average on all the National Polls was Biden with 51.2% to Trump with 44.0%. The final election results were Biden with 51.4% to Trump with 46.9%.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html?fbclid=IwAR36x9ms7wKrG38PzV9uGMYb3NAmFXMZD6-1q1oZG2YzVF0Q-X7sfFSDFIM#polls
Skibum says
The 2016 and 2020 presidential election polling both showed how easily election polls can be skewed, and how wrong they can be when trying to gage future election results. This election season, it seems that various polls have been coming out every day, and one day polls will say Harris is up, and the very next day different polls say something opposite. I have stopped listening to all of this nonsense, and I really wish ALL of the polling would simply disappear because I don’t trust any of it. It is too easy for any organization to skew results depending on how questions are asked, and polling results normally don’t let you see HOW they asked people certain questions, so why would anyone put their faith in percentage results without knowing what the questions were, how large a section of the population was, or even where and how the polling was done. Personally, I think most of this junk is no more reliable than flipping a coin and saying heads means “yes” and tails means “no”. And I refuse to take calls from pollsters seeking my opinion on anything, knowing that in the past, way long ago when I did answer questions from people I didn’t know, I usually answered their questions whichever way the wind was blowing at the moment without regard to how I really felt. These idiotic pollsters just need to go away, for good!
Judith G. Michaud says
Sorry Jimbo XYZ you do not rec0gnize the real fraud from dementia Don ! 34 convicted felons and you think that is ok ? Wow how, sad !
DaleL says
Joe Guzzardi has written a classic bait and switch piece. The story title, “Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024”, states his story is about political polling. In fact, it is an anti-immigration/immigrant story. He references a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) nonprofit. However, FAIR is an anti-immigration organization in the United States. It is certainly not a source for unbiased immigration information.
In fact, according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences, at the federal level, immigrants pay more in taxes over time than they use in government services and benefits. That is reversed at the local level primarily due to the cost of their children’s public schooling.
Council Special Report from Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies: Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego approaches immigration through the lens of economics. The results are surprising. By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy.
https://www.cfr.org/report/economic-logic-illegal-immigration