But my point today is that I question whether the polls are going to get it right. The reason is I hang up on the bastards when they call, and there might be other people like me that don't trust them. I don't think we really need to know who is going to win, and we really just need vote our conscience.
In this election, I think there is a legitimate fear that if you get a call from a pollster, and you answer the wrong way, the result might be a lower credit score, or it might be more difficult to get a job in the future, or who knows what they might do to you if you answer incorrectly? This is the Data Age, and we are rapidly learning it is also the Misuse of Data Age. Besides, how do we know the caller is really a pollster, and not some fringe group who will seek to harass members of the opposition later on?
So, some voters may well lie about who they are going to vote for.
Now let's ask, who would be least likely to lie to pollsters? I'm not an expert social scientist, but my guess is that probably well-established suburbanites who lean Republican would feel comfortable in cooperating with pollsters.
Who would be most likely to lie? That would be young males from minority groups. And, well, pollsters are reporting unexpectedly high support from that demographic this year. To be sure, many feel let down by the Biden Administration, and really do feel that President Trump offers a logical alterative. But is it possible that they might fear reprisals from a new Trump Administration, rightly or wrongly, and lie about who they support? That is, young males from minorities may be disproportionately telling pollsters they are voting Republican. Similarly, fringy independents like myself might think the same way. That's my guess.
They surely keep stats on the percentage of voters that refuse to cooperate, but I have not seen that reported in the press. I suspect it will come out after the election.
In any case, we will survive November 5. We survived four years of being led by a man in the early stages of dementia, so stop saying America is doomed if they don't vote for your candidate. It's hard for me to imagine that either candidate is going to be a step backwards. Come on! Calm down. We'll be all right, and four years from now we will have the opportunity to peacefully elect someone else.