The Difficult Art of the Miraculous Comeback

October 11, 2016

You're going to hear a lot in the next few weeks about how the polls can be wrong, how the candidate who's trailing in October can surge ahead on Election Day, and so on. The example most likely to be cited by the supporters of Donald Trump is the presidential race in 1980:

There have been only 2 instances in the past 14 elections, from 1952 to 2004, when the presidential candidate ahead in Gallup polling a week or so before the election did not win the national popular vote: in 2000 (George W. Bush) and 1980 (Jimmy Carter). And in only one of these, in 1980, did the candidate who was behind (Ronald Reagan) pull ahead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and thus win the election.

Reagan's late-breaking surge that year is generally attributed to the only presidential debate between Carter and Reagan — held one week before the election, on Oct. 28 — which seemed to move voter preferences in Reagan's direction, as well as the ongoing Iran hostage crisis, which reached its one-year anniversary on Election Day. After trailing Carter by 8 points among registered voters (and by 3 points among likely voters) right before their debate, Reagan moved into a 3-point lead among likely voters immediately afterward, and he won the Nov. 4 election by 10 points.

There are a ton of differences between the 1980 race and this year's race, but let's start with one particularly relevant to this moment: Early voting was much rarer back then. Just 4.3 percent of Americans reported voting absentee, which adds up to roughly 3.7 million people. In 2012, 35 percent of Americans voted early, roughly 46 million Americans.

As of yesterday, October 10, 461,583 people have already voted in the year's election. That number is going to increase considerably in the coming days and weeks. In other words, if Trump enjoys a dramatic turn of events in early November to his advantage, that will be too late to influence the decision of perhaps one-third of all voters. He needs a dramatic turn to his advantage as quickly as possible.

The other key point is that the Reagan-overtakes-Carter story focuses on that Gallup poll and ignores the rest of the year: Carter didn't lead Reagan for much of the campaign.

Jimmy Carter's three-point lead among likely voters in the Gallup poll in late October is better remembered as an outlier than the state of the race for most of 1980. Looking at the RealClearPolitics average, Trump trailed almost the entire year, except for a brief period in late July. Then Hillary Clinton enjoyed a huge bump after the Democratic election in August, but it steadily deflated, and by September, Trump was right on her heels, but still narrowly trailing. Obviously, since the first debate, Trump has had lousy national polls and the NBC News/Wall Street Journal one — conducted after the Friday tape but before Sunday night's debate — looks disastrous.

Yet Another Wisconsin Senate Race Poll Showing . . . Wait, What?

Ron Johnson winning his reelection bid in Wisconsin would be one of the most unexpected and delightful victories for conservatives in a long, long time.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson leads challenge Russ Feingold by five points in a new poll released Monday by Loras College.

Johnson had 45 percent to Feingold's 40 percent, with 9 percent saying they were undecided.

The poll of 500 likely Wisconsin voters is the first to give the incumbent Republican senator a lead in the race. Marquette University Law School polls consistently show Feingold, the Democrat, with a lead, as did a poll by Loras College earlier this year. The most recent Marquette poll released last month put Johnson six points behind.

Loras College said in its poll Johnson has the advantage with independent voters, 45 to 35 percent.

Looking at who's voting by party, almost 21% of callers who identified themselves as Democrats said they would vote for Johnson, compared to 10% of Republicans who said they would vote for Feingold.

Russ Feingold appeared to be one of the safest bets for a Democrat winning a Republican seat in 2016. The Nation already did a cover piece entitled, "Mr. Feingold Goes Back to Washington."

This could be just one poll with a wacky sample, or maybe there's been a genuine shift in the race. As Dave Weigel says, it all comes down to "crucial Waukesha County."

Jake Curtis made the case for Johnson in NRO:

The 2016 election cycle has certainly been a disheartening one. Some conservatives remain concerned about Trump. And as the Marquette polling suggests, some Trump supporters remain uncommitted to Johnson. It's hard to fathom why. There is simply no ambiguity in the case of "Ron" vs. "Russ". While Feingold represents the worst of qualities in politics — hypocrisy, extremism, and entitlement — Johnson is a throwback to a different, more principled generation of politicians. No legislator is perfect, but over the last six years, he has left little doubt that what motivates him is changing the current trajectory of our nation for the better. Given the stakes, it's vitally important for the voters of Wisconsin to reelect him in November.

The fact that some Wisconsin Trump supporters refuse to support Johnson — even as Johnson has stuck by Trump — indicates the folly of a conservative Republican political alliance with Trump supporters. To "get back" at Republicans who don't support Trump, these voters will withhold support from the ones that do. Their thinking is too irrational and driven by perceived slights to build a serious working relationship.

'You Will Get a Fair Number of Liberal Economists Who Will Say It Will Lose Jobs'

When Hillary Clinton talked about having a private position and a public position, this is the sort of thing most people suspect she really had in mind:

The head of the liberal Center for American Progress privately warned Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign staff against endorsing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, saying that it would be bad for the economy.

Despite that, both the Clinton campaign and the center have since promoted state and local activists' efforts to push a $15 rate, and Clinton has even said she would sign $15 federal legislation.

Neera Tanden made the warning in an April 2015 email to top Clinton campaign staffers John Podesta, Robby Mook, Jake Sullivan and Jennifer Palmieri. The five were discussing a recent email from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio that gave them a heads up on a rally he was planning that would promote, among other issues, a $15 federal minimum wage. That would more than double the current federal rate of $7.25.

It's bad policy, but it's popular, so let's do it anyway!

Of course, you know who's really to blame in this scenario? The vast majority of the electorate that refuses to believe raising the minimum wage could hurt job creation.

ADDENDA: "Your vote matters!" No it doesn't. No poll in the RealClearPolitics average has shown Trump leading in Virginia this year. The latest survey from Roanoke College puts Clinton up by 9 points.

Mitt Romney lost the state by four points in 2012; John McCain lost it by six points in 2008. Bush won it twice and Bob Dole won it in 1996.