Ignore the Polling on Who Should Replace Ginsburg

Not even 24 hours after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, multiple media outlets were telling us that on the question of who they prefer to replace Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, voters prefer Joe Biden to President Trump.

The Fox News headline Saturday afternoon declared that “52% trust Biden over Trump on Supreme Court picks.” The Fox News question on the Supreme Court was included in its regular Trump-Pence vs. Biden-Harris poll and was conducted days prior to Ginsburg’s death. The Fox poll gave Biden a 52%-45% edge on who people trust “to do a better job on…SCOTUS nominations.”

On early Saturday afternoon, a New York Times headline read, “Polls Have Shown Voters Prefer Biden to Pick Next Justice.” The Times article reported on the Fox poll and also reported on its own New York Times/Siena College three-state poll. The Times article states, “In Times/Siena polls of Maine, North Carolina and Arizona released Friday, voters preferred Mr. Biden to select the next Supreme Court justice by 12 percentage points, 53 percent to 41 percent.”

A Saturday headline at The Hill read, “Majority of voters say Trump should not nominate a Supreme Court justice.” This article reports on “a snap poll released Saturday by YouGov.” According to The Hill,

The poll found that 51 percent of voters believe Trump should not nominate another justice this year, while 42 percent said he should move forward with a nominee. A slight majority, 48 percent, believe the Senate should not confirm a nominee this year. Forty-five percent said the upper chamber should.

Of course, all of this is meant to discourage President Trump, Senate Republicans, and their supporters from moving forward with a nomination to replace Ginsburg prior to the November elections. In other words, these polls are like most every other election-related poll in this modern drive-by media era. They are meant to shape opinions instead of merely reporting on them. Events in 2016 again provide an informative lesson here.

After the death of Antonin Scalia in February of 2016, the media put tremendous pressure on the Republican-led U.S. Senate to give Obama nominee Merrick Garland a Senate hearing and a vote. Part of this pressure included numerous polls that supposedly showed Americans were overwhelmingly in favor of Garland receiving a Senate hearing and a vote. Polling Report reveals this to be the case.

Just days after Scalia’s death, Pew Research Center asked, “In thinking about how the Senate should deal with the Supreme Court vacancy, which of the following statements comes closer to your view? Do you think the Senate should hold hearings and vote on whomever President Obama nominates, or not hold hearings until the next president selects a nominee?” Pew reported that “Hold hearings on Obama’s nominee” got 56% support while “Wait for the next president” got only 38% support.

In late February of 2016, a CNN/ORC poll asked, “President Obama has said that he will nominate someone to fill the vacancy. Do you think the Republican leadership in the Senate should or should not hold hearings on the nominee?” According to this poll, “should” hold hearings was at 66% while “should not” was at 32%.

Likewise, in early March of 2016, an ABC News/Washington Post poll asked, “The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has opened a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. After Obama nominates someone to replace Scalia, do you think the Senate should hold hearings and vote on whether to accept the nomination, or should the Senate NOT hold hearings, which would block the nomination and leave it to the next president?” Again, support for holding hearings was supposedly at 63% while those against holding hearings came in at only 32%.

Similarly, in the middle of March in 2016, Gallup asked, “Now turning to the U.S. Supreme Court, as you may know, Merrick Garland is a federal judge who has been nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. Would you like to see the Senate vote in favor of Garland serving on the Supreme Court, or not?” According to Gallup, those wanting the Senate to vote “in favor” was 52%, while those wanting the Senate to “not vote in favor” was at 29%.

And so on it went for the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 elections. What’s more, liberal pundits across the U.S. ran hundreds of editorials calling for Mitch McConnell to allow hearings and a vote on Garland. Even individual GOP Senators—including Susan Collins—called for the Senate to grant Garland Judiciary Committee hearings.

Of course, refusing to acquiesce on Garland hearings was supposed to cost republicans in the 2016 elections. No less than a former executive editor of The New York Times thought so. Writing in The Guardian, Jill Abramson called Garland’s nomination a “political gift” for Hillary Clinton and added that “Garland’s temperate record and demeanor also magnify the extremism of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the leaders for the GOP presidential nomination who could make their own court nominees if Garland is not confirmed by the election. That could further scare off moderate Republicans.”

Of course, after holding up Garland’s nomination in 2016, Donald Trump became the U.S. President, the republicans held on to the U.S. Senate, and even gained two seats in the 2018 midterms. There’s nothing in politics—or, more importantly, in the U.S. Constitution—that says republicans can’t or shouldn’t replace Ginsburg prior to this November. Don’t let the drive-by media lead you into thinking otherwise.

Additionally, any threats of violence, mayhem, and destruction, or any acts of violence, mayhem, and destruction that result from Trump and Senate Republicans acting to replace Ginsburg will not be the fault of the President and the GOP. Like the rest of the violence and mayhem currently plaguing the U.S., the blame will lie squarely on Democrats and their voters. And remember, it was Democrats who turned the courts into “super legislatures” in order to achieve what they otherwise could not get through actually winning elections and passing legislation. If the courts were what our Founders intended, these battles to replace Supreme Court Justices would not be so contentious.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith and Reason.
www.TrevorGrantThomas.com 
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@TrevorGrantThomas.com

Remember: Pay Little to No Attention to Current National General Election Presidential Polls

According to Real Clear Politics, in spite of the economy and everything else going well in the United States of America, almost every current national poll has President Trump trailing a hypothetical Democrat opponent. Whether Biden, Sanders, Warren, or even Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or Klobuchar, President Trump trails them all in nearly every poll. As of this writing, the latest general election national poll by CNN, IBD/TIPP, Emerson, Fox News, Quinnipiac, and SurveyUSA has President Trump behind almost every possible Democrat candidate.

In 32 different matchups from the six polling agencies previously mentioned, President Trump leads in only two scenarios. Again, as of this writing, the latest IBD/TIPP national poll has Trump beating Warren 47% to 46% and the latest Emerson poll has Trump beating Buttigieg 51% to 49%. According to these polls, even democrats who have since dropped out of the race were beating President Trump.

The latest SurveyUSA national poll (at the end of November, 2019) had Kamala Harris beating the current President of the United States 47% to 42%. At the point Harris dropped out of the race, the Real Clear Politics average had her at plus six over President Trump. Out of 42 polls reported by Real Clear Politics—from June of 2018 until November of 2019—Trump topped Harris only six times. Again, remember that this is a candidate who couldn’t even outlast Julián Castro and Marianne Williamson.

Of course, the lesson here is the 2016 Presidential election. At this point in the 2016 Presidential election, up until Election Day on November 8, 2016, Hillary Clinton led Donald Trump in the vast majority of polls taken. By my count (using a spreadsheet), as reported by Real Clear Politics (RCP), there were 221 polls taken in 2016 that polled Clinton vs. Trump for U.S. President. Donald Trump led in only 26 polls. Twenty-six out of 221. That’s over 88% of the polls that showed Clinton beating Trump.

Often, the race between Clinton and Trump was shown as a complete blowout in favor of Hillary. From January of 2016 through April of 2016, there were a dozen polls that showed Hillary up by double digits. A March 2016 Bloomberg poll had Hillary up by 18 points!

Similarly, at this point in 2016, until Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race, virtually every poll had him leading Donald Trump. From January of 2016 until June of 2016 when Bernie dropped out, RCP reported 28 polls on Sanders vs. Trump. Of those 28 polls, Trump polled ahead of Bernie only once. At the time the polling ended (when Bernie dropped out of the race), the RCP average had Sanders topping Trump by over 10 points!

Again, the race between Trump and Bernie was often shown to be a YUUUGE blowout in favor of Bernie. Of those 28 RCP polls, 22 of them had Bernie on top by double digits. Twelve polls had Bernie up by 15 points or more. The same Bloomberg poll that had Hillary topping Trump by 18 points showed Bernie beating Trump by 24 points!

When it comes to polling, Rush Limbaugh was and is exactly right. As he noted near election time in 2016,

Don’t forget, there is an undeniable truth in politics, and it is this: Polling data is used to shape public opinion. Polling data… Whether it’s presidential races or anything else, if it’s a poll, it is being used to make news. Polling has become the mechanism by which the media can write their own stories, can set their own agenda, and make it look like they’ve got nothing to do with it. The polls have these reputations of independent, nonpartisan, bipartisan, uninterested in the outcome… 

And I want…to remind you again that all of these polls are being used to suppress support for Trump. They are being used to encourage people to abandon Trump. They’re being used to encourage Trump to abandon his campaign. Their purpose is to dispirit and depress everyone and convince as many people as possible that it’s over, that Trump is a buffoon and has no chance whatsoever, all of it’s a waste of time, they might as well concede now and you might as well concede now. That’s the purpose of it.

I’ve long realized well—as no-doubt now do many other Americans—that national polling and the results of the Electoral College are two different things. However, it is interesting to note that, along with all of the other polling nonsense in 2016, about two weeks out from the election, a Reuters/Ipsos “states poll” showed that “the most likely outcome” electorally speaking was “326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump.” This “commanding lead” gave Hillary a “better than 95 percent chance of winning.” It was a 99% chance of Hillary winning if one wanted to believe Princeton scientists (who used state polls to arrive at their number).

As we all now know, the “commanding lead” for Hillary turned into a 306 to 232 (304 to 227 due to “faithless electors”) electoral victory for Donald Trump. And the dismay at the loss of their 95% hopes quickly set in for democrats, as did the move to undo the results of the 2016 election.

I would only trust the polls that are two weeks or less out from the election. As Rush put it, “Those are the ones you really look at, because they are the polls their reputations will be staked to, and every polling unit at the end of a campaign wants to be trusted and reliable, they want to be shown to be right.” Whether or not one can trust the polling agencies, one certainly cannot trust the media who reports on them.

After Trump’s 2016 victory, one would think that the polling organizations and the media would’ve learned their lesson. Yet, less than a year after the 2016 election, an analysis by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group revealed that pollsters were back “churning out biased and misleading poll numbers.”

The Daily Caller reported,

“I do know inherently there is a Democratic bias in the polls. And most of them will deny it” says Raghavan Mayur, an independent pollster who is president of TechnoMetrica, which leads the polling operations at Investor’s Business Daily… 

Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell agreed with Mayur, saying “there was a couple of days of shock. And then they moved on because what they could not do is to get to the bottom of their own polling bias.” … 

When polling the public, most mainstream firms “overloaded for Democrats, underloaded for Republicans and conservatives,” said Francis Coombs, managing editor of Rasmussen Reports. 

John Zogby, another independent pollster, also told TheDCNF he sees significant Democratic polling bias. 

“I am a liberal Democrat, but I always felt that other polls oversampled Democrats and undersampled Republicans,” he said.

“Democratic” bias in the polls coupled with an overwhelming liberal bias in the media means that one should certainly pay little to no attention to most every poll between now and mid-October, and absolutely no attention to mainstream media reports on polling, from now until the end of time.

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Georgia Media Engages in Polling Propaganda

In order to further the liberal agenda on the legalized killing of children still in their mothers’ wombs and to help elect more democrats, the largest newspaper in the state of Georgia—The Atlanta-Journal Constitution (AJC)—has engaged in polling propaganda. Of course, like virtually all U.S. newspapers, given that the AJC is dominated by those with a liberal worldview, this should surprise no one. However, it doesn’t mean we should let them get away with it.

As I noted in a recent column, earlier this year the Georgia legislature passed the LIFE Act—often dubbed a “fetal heartbeat” bill. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has yet to sign the bill, but he is widely expected to do so. Given that protecting the so-called “right” to kill the unborn is sacred to the modern left, liberals across my home state of Georgia have gone to great lengths to demonize and discourage anyone willing to stand up for the most helpless and innocent among us.

In an effort to discourage the pro-life movement and to paint the U.S. as more pro-abortion than it really is, for years now abortion apologists—especially those in the media and the Democrat Party—have promoted polls that supposedly show overwhelming support for the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. For example, late last summer, after President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ)/NBC News poll purported to show 71 percent of Americans were against “completely overturn[ing]” Roe.

However, such polls are almost always seriously flawed. As Michael J. New noted at the time,

The survey question began by stating that Roe v. Wade established a right to an abortion, “at least in the first three months of pregnancy.” It then asked respondents if they would like to see the Supreme Court “completely overturn” Roe v. Wade. As such, many respondents likely concluded that Roe v. Wade only legalized abortion in the first trimester and a reversal of Roe would ban first-trimester abortions.

On the question of overturning Roe, the recent AJC poll uses the exact same deceptive language as the WSJ/NBC poll. The question reads,

In 1973 the Roe versus Wade decision established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision or not?

Unsurprisingly, poll results showed that, to the above question, 70 percent answered “no.” Subsequently, on its website (and I’m assuming in the print edition as well) the AJC ran the headline “AJC poll: Strong support for Roe.” The first sentence of the article declared, “Seven of 10 Georgia voters say they oppose overturning the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to an abortion, according to a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll.”

The article made no mention of how polling subjects were asked about the Roe decision. To warn readers about this, I noted as much in the comments section of the article. Shortly thereafter, my comment was deleted, and soon after that, the AJC website posted an article that contained the poll questions and results.

Given that we are 46 years removed from the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe, many Americans are ignorant about the fact that Roe v. Wade deals with abortion. Thus, pollsters are left to try to explain the decision in one or two sentences. Therefore, we get inaccurate polling results on the Roe decision and on abortion. As was noted in National Review last year,

A Pew Research Center poll taken in 2013 found that only 62 percent of respondents were aware that Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion. Seventeen percent thought Roe v. Wade dealt with some other public-policy issue and 20 percent were unfamiliar with the decision. Furthermore, even many who realize Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion fail to understand the full implications of the decision. Many wrongly think that overturning Roe v. Wade would result in [a] national ban on abortion, instead a reversal of Roe would return the issue to the states.

What’s more, while the recent AJC poll supposedly showed overwhelming support for the Roe decision, respondents were about evenly split on their support for Georgia’s LIFE Act. Forty-three percent said they somewhat or strongly supported the bill while 48 percent said they somewhat or strongly opposed it. These results are more in line with what more sophisticated abortion polling reveals.

For example, consider last year’s Gallup poll on abortion. On the question of whether the Supreme Court should overturn Roe, 28 percent said yes and 64 percent said no. However, more detailed questioning reveals that Americans are not as much in favor of Roe as a simple question on overturning Roe might indicate. When asked whether an abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, “When the woman does not want the child for any reason” (the vast majority of abortions are performed because the child would be an inconvenience), 45 percent said it should be legal, while 53 percent said it should not be legal.

When the same question is asked about the last three months of pregnancy, only 20 percent said abortion should be legal, while 77 percent said it should not be legal. Likewise, in the last three months of pregnancy, when asked about whether abortion should be legal if the child would be “born mentally disabled” or “born with Down Syndrome,” the vast majority thought abortion should be illegal (61 percent to 35 percent and 68 percent to 29 percent, respectively) in such cases.

However, under the court’s current interpretation of Roe—a legal and moral abomination— laws that would restrict abortion according to the above opinions would almost certainly be struck down. In other words, because of the pro-abortion hyperbole regularly thrown around by liberals, many Americans simply don’t understand that for U.S. laws to reflect such opinions, Roe would have to go.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2019, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com