Favorable poll numbers for Joe Biden would presumably thrill those hoping to remove President Trump from office in November. But Democratic operatives have a much different message.
“Ignore the polls and do the work,” Rob Flaherty, digital director for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign, tweeted Monday morning.
It was an apparent response to a CNN national poll released Monday that found Biden with a 14-point lead over Trump. A win by that large of a margin would give Biden a blowout 413-point electoral vote victory, “assuming a uniform shift from 2016,” elections analyst Ryan Matsumoto said in a tweet.
The CNN poll followed a Wall Street Journal/NBC national poll released Sunday and an NPR/PBS/Marist national poll released Friday, each of which found Biden 7 points ahead.
While the CNN poll is an outlier among other recent surveys, many other national surveys show Biden leading by a comfortable margin. He is further ahead in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls at this point before Election Day than any presidential candidate since 2004.
Ignore polls and do the work
— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) June 8, 2020
Yet Democratic operatives echoed Flaherty’s sentiment. “If you want to win in November, ignore the polls,” tweeted Democratic strategist Jess O’Connell.
“There’s no time for complacency. 148 days of hard work, and we take back our country,” tweeted Chris Lu, who was a senior Obama administration official and now a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Democrats redirecting attention away from the polls, though, is not akin to Trump’s distrust of surveys that are unfavorable.
Trump’s strategy to address poor polling results is to delegitimize them. The president on Monday declared that the CNN poll was “fake” and shared a memo from Republican polling firm McLaughlin & Associates that noted only 25% of respondents in the poll were Republicans.
Those backing Biden generally believe that the polls are an accurate reflection of the current mood of the country and how people would vote if the election were held today. But they worry about what might happen before Election Day.
“It’s always better to be ahead than behind in the polls, but five months is an eternity in politics,” Lu told the Washington Examiner.
Those outraged by Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic or activists energized by protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who was restrained by a white police officer, could be less motivated in November.
Instead of feeling comforted by the polls, operatives urge activists to vote, knock on doors, make phone calls, and engage in other activities.
The sentiment is rooted in former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Trump.
“The stress among Democrats to emphasize the need to turn out and vote is surely a reaction to the 2016 results, especially given Clinton’s lead in national polls and popular vote win while losing the Electoral College. Party advocates are working hard against complacency,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll.
Many blamed national polls showing Clinton leading and electoral prediction models forecasting that Clinton would win over Trump for giving eligible voters a false sense of security, causing them to stay home or vote third party rather than voting for Clinton and contributing to narrow Trump wins in crucial swing states that led to his Electoral College win.
Franklin noted that in the 2016 election, voters viewed both Clinton and Trump unfavorably, “the first time both candidates were seen negatively since the question was first asked in the 1970s.”
“Negativity to both candidates, a sustained edge in polls, and the willingness to vote for a third party rather than cast a vote that might affect which major party wins in a close state all played a role in 2016,” Franklin said.
Keeping activists engaged can create a buffer for Biden in the event state-level polls were also an issue in 2016.
While Clinton won the national popular vote, closely matching national polls, state polling was less reliable, making the Electoral College win harder to predict. There have been some improvements in state polls, but many factors could still tilt the results in favor of Democrats.
And active supporters can also help mitigate any last-minute bad news for Biden. Former FBI Director James Comey’s late October letter to Congress announcing his intent to reopen an investigation into some of Clinton’s email communications is also widely blamed for her loss.
This is not the first time “ignore the polls” became a rallying cry for Democratic organizers. They repeated the phrase around the time of the 2018 midterm elections that resulted in a “blue wave.” Democrats gained 26 seats in Congress, retaking the Hosue majority.
Clearly, Democrats hope that mindset leads to a similar result in 2020.
