Why I believe the polls

In response to the latest eye-popping poll from a reputable outlet, I've joked on Bluesky that the polls are "drunk" and — using this meme, which I stole from one of my favorite accounts — cautioned anyone who wants to see MAGA decidedly rejected at the polls to remain "calm."

It's a bit. (Part of the fun of social media is you can pretend that your annoying try-hard jokes are actually "a bit," which makes you sound like a professional comedian.)

Because the truth is that I believe these "drunk" polls are, more or less, with the significant margin for error that modern polling demands we accept, directionally correct.

Polling is broken — but not to this extent. These blackout-drunk results — like Tom Cotton barely hitting 50% in Arkansas, for example — are, I think, not a mirage.

The reason isn't because I've done a deep dive on the numbers (lol) or because I've immersed myself in the writings of the kind of pundits who do. No shade to those folks — I'm just trying to make the argument from a different angle. A more political one.

And that argument, in two words, is Donald Trump.

In Trump, we have a president who insists on talking, obsessively, about his most unpopular obsessions — and then insists that the issue that matters most to voters, affordability, is fake — is a president who is either utterly indifferent, or terrifyingly oblivious, to public opinion.

Most second-term presidents begin shifting towards legacy items and caring a bit less about public opinion. And most second-term presidents get wiped-out during their midterm election (the so-called six-year-itch, although in Trump's case I think this is more of a 10-year rash).

But Trump has taken both of these tendencies to a farcical extreme.

His legacy items aren't peace in the Middle East or a nuclear deal with Iran — they're a demolished East Wing for a ballroom no one wants, a giant arch that he claims will also serve national security purposes that no one asked for, the Kennedy Center debacle, an obsession with chintzy pageantry like a military parade on his birthday, covering DC in gold, and having his entire administration work towards Trump when it comes to searching for things on which to plaster his name.

I don’t think the average voter needs to have an opinion about a triumphal arch, per se, for this to matter. What matters is that this is exactly the kind of stuff voters do not want politicians — much less the president — focusing on, period, but especially at a time when people feel the economy is in poor shape and frustration about prices is boiling over into rage.

The war with Iran, meanwhile, has had an enormous political effect despite avoiding the hallmarks of foreign policy failure, at least as far as public opinion is concerned: no ground invasion, no American losses on the scale of Iraq, much less Vietnam.

But here's the thing about Americans, and it's something that Harris supporters learned the hard way in 2024 and Republicans are learning now: Americans think of themselves, first and foremost, as consumers. Not as citizens of a republic, and not as the vanguard against a nuclear Iran. And to be a consumer in America today is not great.

Adding insult to injury, many voters feel that Trump lied to them by promising "no new wars" and no more forever wars before launching a war of choice against Iran. (I am of the opinion that part of the reason they feel that way is that it is true, even if I find the outcome also maddeningly predictable as a consequence of Trump's reelection.)

The objection is that the polls have been wrong before — they were wrong in the primaries, albeit by historically normal standards — and that they seem especially prone to error when it comes to Donald Trump.

There's some truth to this. But it ignores two basic realities of this political moment: Trump is incredibly unpopular; and even if there remain pockets of diehard Trump supporters, the hidden MAGA volk that pollsters supposedly cannot reach, those are people who love Donald Trump.

This is a midterm election. Despite his demand that voters pretend as if he were, President Trump will not be on anyone's ballot in 2026.

I don't think his absence magically fixes whatever the pollsters have been getting wrong. But Republicans still have to get those people to show up for somebody else. And Republicans are spending heavily to defend Senate seats in Texas and Kansas. I can believe the polls are overstating the damage without believing they've invented it.

I'm not guaranteeing the Democrats will perform at the high-end of what the models say is possible. I wouldn't put all my savings on South Carolina going blue, for example (I prefer to invest in sports gambling).

But I think flipping the House is a done deal, frankly, and I'll be shocked if the Democrats don't end up in control of the Senate, too.