According to my news aggregator app, we are in silly season again; liberal media outlets are all in on a November blue wave, fueled by a few polls and GOP quotes. Vanity Fair: Democrats Are Starting To See A Path To Victory In November. The New York Times: Democrats Enter The Fall With Something New: Hope! The Washington Post: Jubilant Senate Democrats Head Home With Momentum.
But, the story that caught my eye was in my local Florida paper: Val Demings leads Marco Rubio in Florida!
You wanna bet?
One poll (UNF) shows putative Democrat nominee Demings leading Mr. Rubio by 4 points. Three surveys show her tied with Rubio; one each from EMILY’s List, Progress Florida, and Change Research. Ever heard of them? Meanwhile, GOP internal polling still has Rubio up by 11 points with likely voters. Whatever? Take the over on Rubio.
The Florida Division of Elections reports fewer “inactive” Republicans (why Trump won twice) and 231,000 more “registered” Republicans. Florida also has 2.5 million registered Hispanic voters, whom multiple polls show trending conservative. Do you really believe they’re going to oust the most powerful Latino in Congress? Not me.
Back to the 231,000 GOP registration advantage, because Rubio’s party added 650,000 new voters to its ranks after 2016. This explains why the polls keep getting Florida so wrong; a trickle of baby boomers has turned into a torrent of relocations that pollsters cannot possibly track. They can guess, but they cannot know – and many don’t care to know.
Republican votes that were wasted in Chicago or New York matter in Florida, where GOP voter-share has spiked in all but two counties (source: FDOE). And that’s just Florida. What about GOP votes moving from Manhattan to Nassau County, because 863,000 urban Americans fled to the suburbs in 2021 alone (source: EIG). Think the polling firms are on top of this? Not likely, and it matters.
There were 32 million permanent moves inside the US in 2020, and 26 million from January–October 2021 (source: JCHS-Harvard). That’s disruptive to elections before it ever affects House seats and electoral votes. Already the Census Bureau has admitted it over-counted blue states in 2020 (source: Fox News).
The point here is that polling known knowns (state, district and precinct) is now harder than ever. On top of vote migration, the Great Resignation has forced experience and expertise out of low-pay polling firms. Ever look at the actual polls? I do, and the formats ooze bias; such as asking candidate preferences after state-of-mind questions (e.g. are you concerned about election deniers?).
I suspect bias at pro-abortion EMILY’S List tilted results toward Democrat Demings, especially after Floridians elected 21 of 30 conservatives onto school boards, flipping woke Miami-Dade into GOP hands. Now those are real opinions and they really count.
Of course, not all polls are biased, but almost all will get 2022 wrong.
