6 WEEKS TO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
TRAFALGAR GROUP POLL WAS THE ONLY POLL THAT PREDICTED TRUMP WOULD WIN IN 2016.
IT IS THE ONLY MOST RELIABLE POLL PREDICTING 2020 ELECTION
“Arizona and Minnesota are in the sights of both parties. Florida probably is the most important state this year, and both candidates have hit it in recent days. But in a close race, flipping just one state from Democratic blue to Republican red, or vice versa, could be decisive. Travel by the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to Arizona and Minnesota shows those are the states that fall most directly into that category. The Biden campaign thinks it could turn Arizona blue for the first time since 1996, and the Trump campaign is aiming to flip Minnesota red for the first time since 1972.”
It has been impossible to predict Donald J. Trump. The major TV networks – CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX and print media – NYTimes, WSJ, and Washington Post failed to predict 2016 election. Because Trump has shocked the political scientists and the elites by keep on winning against all the odds. Trump, who had never run for any elective office announced in 2015 that he was going to run for the President of the USA. From that time on, the Democrats supported by the mainstream media and the polls sponsored by them have been attacking Trump ignoring the voters. Trump is running on his performance. Biden has made Trump the issue.
TRUMP BURIES CLINTON AND BUSH DYNASTIES
Trump defeated nine two term veteran Republican governors of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arkansas and Louisiana in the primaries. He also defeated five Republican senators from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas. After that, he had to fight to win the nomination. Finally, he defeated the most educated and popular Hillary Clinton heavily supported by the mainstream media. This was a long political process but he buried Clinton and Bush dynasties.
Michael Moore said before 2016 election: “And if you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut.
TRAFFALGAR GROUP POLL – MOST RELIABLE POLL
Robert Cahaly, senior strategist for the Trafalgar Group, made a name for himself in 2016 by being the only pollster to correctly show Donald Trump with a lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania – two key states he carried – heading into Election Day. (He did not poll Wisconsin, another surprising win for Trump.) Cahaly also showed Trump ahead in North Carolina and Florida, both of which he won, securing his improbable 304-227 Electoral College victory over Hillary Clinton.
Cahaly managed to pick up support for Trump that all other pollsters missed in employing a unique method that sought to measure support from voters who had been “inactive” in recent election cycles, as well as adding a question to his surveys designed to isolate the effect of social desirability bias among Trump voters—the concept that people won’t tell pollsters their true intentions for fear of being stigmatized or being politically incorrect.
After asking voters who they were supporting in 2016, the pollster followed up by asking them who they thought their neighbors were supporting, Trump or Clinton. Cahaly consistently found a high degree of variance between who respondents said they were voting for and who they thought their neighbors were voting for, suggesting there was in fact a “shy Trump effect” at play.
Two years later, Cahaly’s method once again proved solid. In one of the most polled races of the cycle, Trafalgar stood alone as the only polling firm to correctly show a Ron DeSantis gubernatorial victory in Florida – as well as Rick Scott winning the Senate race there. (Both narrow outcomes will likely result in recounts.)
Trafalgar also correctly predicted Senate outcomes in Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia, making it the most accurate pollster of the cycle among those firms that polled multiple Senate and governor races.
In the Georgia governor race, Cahaly’s results showed a big win for Republican Brian Kemp over Democrat Stacy Abrams. The final result, however, was a much closer Kemp victory. Cahaly gave credit to the Abrams campaign. They did a great job of registering voters late and bringing lots of new people in the process.
The same was true in Texas, Cahaly said, where Beto O’Rourke finished just 2.6 per centage points behind Ted Cruz.
Still, the pollster believes his method and methodology will be more valuable than ever as low voter response rates and social desirability bias continue to present challenges to all pollsters in the future.
According to the latest Trafalgar polls, Trump is already slightly ahead or tied Biden in all battleground States. It is important to note that the polls have started tightening. Between now and the election, the Undecides approximately 10% will influence. I have noticed the mainstream media and Realclear Politics Average have been ignoring Trafalgar Group polls because they seem to tell the truth favoring Trump.
In this era of a deeply and evenly divided electorate, presidential campaigns tend to be won in the margins, not in landslides. And in recent days, each presidential campaign has shown where it hopes to get a bit of a marginal advantage.
In the last seven presidential elections, the winner’s share of the popular vote nationally has been 46%, 51%, 53%, 51%, 48%, 49% and 43%. Although Biden appears to hold a comfortable lead over Trump in national polls at the moment, recent history says there is ample reason to think the race will tighten in the remaining six weeks, and ultimately be decided by the outcome in a few closely divided swing states.
The Trump campaign senses an opening with Hispanics. Biden will almost certainly win the Hispanic vote overall, but Republicans think Trump can cut into that advantage. Last week Trump was in Arizona for a roundtable with Hispanic voters.
Biden is playing for some of the blue-collar vote Hillary Clinton lost four years ago. So Biden held a town hall with voters in Scranton, PA, and declared there that this is “a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue.”
The Biden campaign is worried about the level of Black enthusiasm. Biden will win the Black vote by a wide margin, but lackluster turnout in some places cost Clinton the election. Now, the Trump campaign is making a play specifically for more votes among Black men. In response, Kamala Harris has campaigned in recent days in minority communities in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida.
ARIZONA and MINNESOTA
Arizona and Minnesota are in the sights of both parties. Florida probably is the most important state this year, and both candidates have hit it in recent days. But in a close race, flipping just one state from Democratic blue to Republican red, or vice versa, could be decisive. Travel by the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to Arizona and Minnesota shows those are the states that fall most directly into that category. The Biden campaign thinks it could turn Arizona blue for the first time since 1996, and the Trump campaign is aiming to flip Minnesota red for the first time since 1972.
FOLLOWING STATISTICS SHOW HOW RAZOR THIN WAS TRUMP’S WIN IN 2016
CLINTON TRUMP
Arizona 45.13 46.67
Florida 47.82 49.02
Maine 2 40.98 51.26
Maine 1 47.27 47.50
Minnesota 46.44 44.92
North Carolina 46.17 49.83
Ohio 43.56 51.69
Pennsylvania 47.46 48.18
Wisconsin 46.45 47.22
New Hampshire 46.98 46.61
Nevada 47.50 45.98
COLOR
White 39 54 Total 74%
Black 91 6 10%
Latinos 66 28 10%
FINAL 2016 VOTE: 48.2 46.1
Clinton led by 2.01 points nationally
After having botched the entire news coverage of the 2016 election, where all the ‘experts’ repeatedly told the American public that Trump had little to no chance of being the Republican nominee and even less a chance of being elected President, corporate media is back at it again, insisting all is well with the Biden campaign and the Democrats are safely on cruise control to take the White House and the Senate.
This race is effectively tied today, Trump has momentum and enthusiasm, and Biden is going to have to campaign hard, energize his voters, and earn it if he hopes to unseat the incumbent.
(Ven Parameswaran, Chairman, Asian American Republican Committee (founded 1988) lives in Scarsdale, NY. He can be reached at vpwaren@gmail.com)