by Edmund Kozak
For all those sipping a cocktail right now in a Manhattan skyscraper, toasting the swift demise of one Donald J. Trump, here’s a fly in your pretentious dirty martini: There are signs that the belligerent billionaire may be doing significantly better in the presidential race than many polls indicate.
New voter registration is surging in several swing states and appears to be lopsided in favor of the Republican Party. Moreover, a recent analysis of absentee ballots in Florida reveals an unprecedented number of low-propensity voters registered this year — presumably to support the outsider candidate (hint: It’s not Hillary Clinton).
“Republicans have continued gaining ground in recent months in voter registration in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Iowa,” Politico reported last week. In Pennsylvania, more than 85,000 former Democrats have switched to the Republican Party this year. This is nearly three times the number of those who made the opposite switch.
In North Carolina, Politico reported, “Democrats’ voter registration advantage shrunk by 44,000 between June 2015 and May 2016” and their “advantage had dwindled to 641,000” as of Aug. 13. In Florida, Republicans have added nearly 70,000 voters and the Democrats’ registration advantage has more than halved since 2012.
Data from Florida also suggests this election could see an unprecedented turnout of first-time or second-time voters. In examining absentee ballots for the upcoming Florida Senate primary election, the Florida Chamber of Commerce discovered “a huge spike in mail voting by people who rarely vote in primary elections,” the Tampa Bay Times reported.
According to the report, nearly half of the mail ballots returned for the primary election are from those who voted in one or fewer of the last four primary elections. “We’re in unprecedented, uncharted territory,” said Florida Chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson. “Nobody’s been polling these people, nobody’s been marketing to these people.”
No one has been polling these people — and these people may very well decide the election. This is one of the reasons why most of the polls which have shown Trump losing in a landslide are not to be trusted — most polling companies reach out to those who are historically politically active, not those who are historically apathetic.
Furthermore, many of the polls which paint the most depressing picture for the Trump campaign are heavily weighted toward registered Republicans and Democrats, when in reality most registered American voters are independent — and independent voters appear to lean Trump. A recent Emerson poll for example found that Trump leads independents in Ohio by 47 percent to 30 percent, 39 percent to 38 percent in Michigan, and 43 percent to 37 percent in Pennsylvania. Some studies have also indicated that Trump consistently performs better in anonymous, online polls, suggesting that he has stronger support than many traditional polls seem to indicate.
