On Monday night, I saw a message in social media that Univision’s poll had Clinton beating Trump, 9-1!
It naturally created a little excitement, specially among those who were probably clicking the website saying that Clinton had destroyed Trump. I reminded the people in the chat that Univision’s numbers had two problems: It was not scientific or a real poll, and, it did not even reflect Mr. Trump’s standing with Hispanics.
At one point, I just turned off the politics and went to the MLB channel to catch up with the pennant races. At least, they weren’t running instant polls on whether the Blue Jays would beat the Orioles for the # 1 wild card seed.
Put me down as someone who does not like snap polls. They mean nothing and end up creating confusion about the state of the race.
To be fair, most of the snap polls actually had Trump winning. Even the CNN poll (Clinton 62-27 over Trump) had so many “caveats” that you had to learn Latin to understand it:
And while it handed the victory overwhelmingly to Clinton, it was more mixed on whether the debate will make a difference, with 47 per cent saying it would not affect their vote, 34 per cent saying it moved them towards Clinton — and 18 per cent towards Trump.
And that’s the serious poll of the night? 62% say that Clinton won but 47% saying that it does not matter. What were these people watching? A debate or a movie?
The moral of the story is that there are too many snap polls that mean nothing.
As I told a friend, this debate really did little to change the race. Trump did miss some “fat pitches” and Clinton’s permanent smile looked like she was a portrait rather than a human being. Again, it had little impact on voters.
Let me add two more thoughts about this campaign, indeed the most unique that I’ve seen.
First, the media is in the tank for Hillary Clinton but this is actually hurting her, as Michael Goodwin noted:
But here’s the other side of the story: Trump won’t suffer much voter pain, certainly not enough to put victory out of reach. His secret weapon is that his core supporters, including many independents, distrust the media nearly as much as they distrust Clinton.Consider that, while most media professionals said Clinton won the debate, most online polls of viewers had Trump winning.
Second, we are two nations speaking two languages, as my friend Barry Casselman wrote recently. The elites say “free trade”, look at maps and economic theories. The people between the coasts hear “free trade” and they see their plant or job leaving. Donald Trump is speaking the language between the coasts and that is why he is in this race.
And yes, let’s kill all of the snap polls!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. We discussed the debate in Wednesday’s show:
Wednesday Sept 28: A round table discussion of the Trump-Clinton debate # 1...click to listen.....blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2016…
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