Weaponized Polling Is More Dangerous Than Ever

Right-leaning outfits are skewing the polls for Trump for quite sinister reasons.

Image credit: RealClearPolling

Election analyst

Simon Rosenberg

recently noted that of the last 15 general election polls released for Pennsylvania, a state viewed by both sides as key to any electoral victory, 12 have right-wing or GOP affiliations.

Rosenberg warned,

“Their campaign to game the polling averages and make it appear like Trump is winning—when he isn't—escalated in [the] last few days.”

This isn’t the first time the GOP has weaponized polling. In October 2022, right before the midterms, Republican-leaning polls flooded the zone, leading many in the media to predict a “red wave” that would swamp Democrats and turn control of the battleground states, the House, and the Senate over to the GOP.

But the red wave was a manufactured story, and it never crashed ashore. Instead, Democrats (and anti-extremist Republicans) won nearly across the board in the key swing states, gaining one seat in the Senate and only barely losing the House due to poor performance by Democrats in big blue states like New York and California.

Legacy media should be pushing back hard against this narrative, having been bamboozled by it before. Instead, headline after headline is repeating the “vibe” generated by crap, partisan polling: “Trump is on the move, the race is narrowing.”

But that’s not true. The race, both nationally and in the battlegrounds, hasn’t appreciably moved in the past few weeks at all. Harris still has a narrow lead both in national polls and in the battleground states.

It’s very much worth asking: What do the GOP and the Trump campaign gain by polluting the poll averages with bad data? In today’s piece, I review what happened with the polls during the 2022 midterms and what lessons we ought to have learned. Then I’ll give some examples of some of the more egregious partisan weaponized polling today to demonstrate how the GOP has sought to put its fingers on the electoral scales. 

I’ll then discuss three broad reasons why it’s to their advantage to prove the race is “tied” rather than that Trump continues to trail. Finally, I’ll offer some guidance on how we can push back against the negative poll vibe and maintain our collective sanity and sense of determination as the election draws to a close.

Gaming the system

Back in 2022, right as the pivotal midterms were upon us, a handful of election analysts began to sound the alarm about the sudden increase in right-leaning polls, especially in the battleground states. Simon Rosenberg led the charge:

"In six major battleground states, more than half the polls conducted in October have been conducted by Republican firms… Basically we can't trust the data on RealClearPolitics or FiveThirtyEight any longer... it's essentially Republican propaganda," he told Joy Reid on MSNBC on October 31st, just eight days before the election. 

Rosenberg noted that the two main polling averages that many relied on had become corrupted by a flood of Republican polling. No one was listening, however, and many dismissed his concerns outright.

So I looked into this too, and concurred. At the time, I wrote that if we screened out the polls that were partisan, the story around the midterms looked far different than a predicted “red wave.”

The media narrative in October was uniformly about such a blow-out, based in part around a series of polls that came out showing the GOP had regained the upper hand in the generic congressional ballot. But that may have turned out to be a temporary phenomenon driven by pollsters with strong Republican partisan biases. 

I agreed with Rosenberg that the filtered polling averages told a very different story, one of a country that was pretty much dead even.

Our conclusions proved to be correct. Instead of a red wave in the battlegrounds, Democrats nearly swept the swing states, winning key governor and senate races, gaining majorities in some state legislative chambers, and nearly preventing the GOP from taking back the House—when they had been expected to cruise to a 30-seat majority.

But the flood of GOP pollsters had taken a toll. It demoralized Democrats and shifted dollars away from races that the polls claimed were unwinnable. Chief among these was the nearly successful Senate campaign of Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Those corrupted polling averages had him trailing the incumbent Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson, by as much as five points. Democratic donors believed the numbers and decided Barnes was likely to lose. Money shifted to places like John Fetterman’s race in Pennsylvania—a race he actually won quite handily.

But Barnes was much more competitive than the corrupted polls showed. He lost to Johnson by less than one percent. The Senate would have been a very different place over the past two years if we could have ignored the corporatists like Sens. Manchin and Sinema because we had 52 instead of 51 seats in that body.

The frustrating thing as we look out over the polling today is that the GOP is running the exact same play, and Democrats and the media are falling for it again. This is in part because Democrats tend to worry and fret more than Republicans. After all, to defenders of democracy, this is an existential election, but to the MAGA right it’s just the same entertaining show. As far as the media, they love to run any story that draws anxious readers in. “The race is tied” feeds into this cycle, with the press reporting on the horse race rather than the stakes of the election.

More on that below.

Examples of corrupted polling

After what happened in 2022, election analysts have been tracking the number of GOP-leaning polls that dropped in the battleground states versus the number of non-partisan or Democratic-leaning polls. Earlier this month, former pollster Adam Carlson noted,

Since September 30 (last Monday), there have been almost as many Republican-aligned polls released as non-partisan polls — with Democratic-aligned polls basically non-existent.

🟣 Non-partisan-aligned polls: 33

🔴 Republican-aligned polls: 26

🔵 Democratic-aligned polls: 1

Carlson later corrected this count to 27 GOP and 32 non-aligned polls.

“I believe this is what the kids call ‘flooding the zone,’” Carlson further remarked.

Also sounding the alarm was Rosenberg, who warned on October 5, 

The red wavers stepped up their activity this past week, releasing at least 20 polls across the battlegrounds…. As in 2022, these polls usually [are] between 2 and 4 points more Republican than the independent polling so when there [are] a lot of them they can move the averages rightward.

Rosenberg called out the polls by name and further noted:

the states that have received the most red wave polls [these] few weeks are Montana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Over the past 10 days, depending on how you characterize the pollsters, they released at least 5 and as many 7 polls in Pennsylvania alone. Their recent flood of polls in NC and PA tipped the Real Clear Politics polling average for each state to Trump, which then in turn got Trump to 281 in their corrupt Electoral College map. Yes, in Real Clear Politics Trump is now winning the election due to their gamesmanship.

Some of these pollsters even bragged publicly about what they had accomplished.

Note in particular attempts to sink Sen. Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent in Montana, by making it seem like he can’t win. This is the Mandela Barnes story rebooted. It’s an attempt to drive national dollars away from Tester and depress turnout in Montana for him.

On Sunday, October 13, Rosenberg reported with a stunning update:

“With three weeks to go we should note that Rs have dropped more than 60 polls into the polling averages over the last few weeks to red wave 2024.”

Some observers, such as Jon Favreau, have noted that these GOP-leaning polls haven’t been able to move the actual averages that much, maybe a point or so. But even that can be significant in a tight race. And besides, it’s more than just the averages. It’s the constant drumbeat of “Trump is winning” or “the race is essentially tied” headlines. They are affecting the media reporting while dampening the national mood with Democrats and raising expectations undeservedly with Republicans. As I’ll discuss later, that all matters a lot.

How do the GOP polls and shenanigans skew things?

Here’s an example of how shady the polling can get. TIPP is a right-aligned pollster, according to Rosenberg. It released a poll on October 10, commissioned by American Greatness (yes, that’s really the name of the group) with a headline that Trump was leading in Pennsylvania:

Funny thing about that poll, though. Looking at the Registered Voters (RVs) polled, a whole 1079 of them, Harris was actually leading Trump by four points. But when it only counted the 803 Likely Voters (LVs), somehow Trump was leading by one point, 49-48. How could that be?

The methodology was very suspicious. Among the 124 RVs surveyed in Philadelphia, TIPP in its wisdom determined that only 12 (yes, 12) of them were “likely voters.” It basically nearly zeroed out Philadelphia. The cancellation of votes from 112 respondents from that city alone accounted for around half of the 206-person difference between RVs and LVs in the TIPP poll.

You can see for yourself in their “crosstabs.” Here are the 124 RVs in Philly:

Oh, and whoops! They’re nearly all gone when it comes to Likely Voters!

When 538 investigated, it asked TIPP about this wild erasure. According to 538, TIPP responded that 

a disproportionate # of their Philly respondents had factors that made them unlikely to vote: they were young, not a college graduate, and/or nonwhite. So a ton of them happened to fall beneath the threshold to count as a likely voter.

Notably, TIPP had not used this screening method for Likely Voters in its surveys of AZ and NC. In those surveys, it counted everyone as a Likely Voter who responded with an intention to vote. But not for PA, apparently. And especially not for Philly.

But hey, let’s use the poll anyway in the averages. 538 by its own admission “doesn’t police pollsters’ LV screens.” And a poll “appearing on our polls page is not a guarantor of quality, just of existence.” Thanks for that helpful reminder, 538!

The red-wavers are also using the political betting site Polymarket to make the case that Trump is actually winning. Polymarket itself has some eyebrow-raising participants. The biggest user appears to be “Fredi9999” who has a whopping 7.2 million shares on Trump and $6.4 million in positions, all on Trump. Is this a billionaire looking to tilt the scales? I should also note that Peter Thiel, a die-hard Trumper, is himself a big investor in Polymarket through his Founders Fund. That fund recently led a $70 million round of investment into the betting site. Oh, and fun fact, oft-cited election prognosticator Nate Silver is now also an advisor for Polymarket.

Another target for GOP-leaning polls is Real Clear Politics, a polling agglomerator that will throw any poll into the mix no matter who is behind it. The fellows behind RCP are also conservative Republicans, and their polling average feels like the Fox News of polling averages. Here’s what the New York Times reported back in 2020 when the nation was on edge over election results:

For three days after every major news organization declared Joseph R. Biden Jr. the victor of the presidential election, one widely read political site maintained that Pennsylvania was still too close to call.

The delay was welcome news to allies of President Trump like Rudolph W. Giuliani and friendly outlets like The Gateway Pundit, which misrepresented the site’s decision in their efforts to spread false claims that Mr. Biden’s lead was unraveling.

That site, Real Clear Politics, is well known as a clearinghouse of elections data and analysis with a large following among the political and media establishment — and the kinds of political obsessives who might now have all the counties in Georgia memorized. It markets itself to advertisers as a “trusted, go-to source” admired by campaign and news professionals alike. Its industry benchmark polling average is regularly cited by national publications and cable news networks.

But less well known is how Real Clear Politics and its affiliated websites have taken a rightward, aggressively pro-Trump turn over the last four years as donations to its affiliated nonprofit have soared. Large quantities of those funds came through two entities that wealthy conservatives use to give money without revealing their identities.

It is rather depressing when you realize that the most popular and widely used and shared sources, from RCP to Polymarket to even 538 to some extent, are corrupted by the presence of so many right-leaning actors.

Trump needs the polls to be close to be able to claim fraud

It doesn’t take much deduction to understand that an election that is perceived as close benefits Trump, especially when it comes to calling the election results into question. This is something he already has signaled he will do, and we should be prepared for it.

In order to pull this off this time around, Trump will need to convince his followers (as well as county and state officials) that he would have prevailed but for the claimed election fraud. That is much easier to do if he can point to “polls” showing he was actually ahead or tied, and not losing by 2-4 points, which is where he may wind up in some of the battleground states.

Seen in this light, the GOP-leaning surveys are doing more than simply putting their fingers on the scales when it comes to polling. They are actively and knowingly enabling future false claims and conspiracies around election fraud.

Trump needs to appear strong

In a thread, Rosenberg also makes an excellent point that the right-leaning polls showing Trump is tied or leading also serve to prop up his image as a candidate of strength:

Trump may be a rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon but he is leading in the polls and is strong.  

Trump may be a dangerous extremist, a bigot, misogynist and a racist but he is leading in the polls and is strong.

Trump may want to end the global economy which has made us prosperous, end the Western alliance which has kept us safe, end American democracy which has kept us free but he is leading in the polls and is strong.

The “strength” masks his inherent ugliness. It also covers for the fact that Trump is actually consistently behind in the national polls and trailing in the most important Blue Wall states of PA, MI and WI that hold the keys to the electoral math.

Further, whenever Trump starts to lose it, freaking out over whatever quality, non-partisan poll has reported about the race recently, his advisors can point him toward a Rassmussen or Trafalgar poll to allay his fears. And then he can go before his MAGA faithful and proclaim that the “polls” have him leading “by a lot.” Problem solved!

Close polling normalizes Trump’s horrors

I want to add one more point to this: Trump’s positive poll numbers, ginned up as they are by right-leaning outfits, create a permission structure for Republicans and Trump-leaning independents to vote for him, not just because they show he’s strong, but because other voters apparently have no issue doing so. 

As I wrote in The Status Kuo newsletter yesterday, 

Why is the GOP flooding us with so many partisan polls to make it seem like the race is far better for Trump than it is? What’s the point of all that?

Many of you have answered that question yourselves already without realizing it, just by wondering aloud, “Why is the race tied?!”

You see, if people are led to believe it is tied, then it must also be true that half of America thinks it’s somehow okay to pick Trump, despite everything we know about him. It normalizes him. It tells us all that these horrific things don’t matter, and we begin to believe that because the polls are telling us so.

The media is complicit in this. They often simply repeat these bunk polls, especially in the battlegrounds, rather than report Harris continues to lead and Trump appears to have hit a ceiling long ago, 

Resetting the scales

It’s not easy to filter out the noise created by the GOP and its red-waving tactics. This is especially true for Democrats who instinctively latch onto bad news in order to prepare mentally for a bad outcome like we saw in 2016.

Resilience in the age of disinformation comes from practice. When I see a poll number now, my first question is not what it says but rather, “Who is saying it?” We have earned the right to be skeptical given the polluted environment. When Donald Trump or JD Vance makes a claim, we already know not to put much faith in it. The same now goes for most polling results.

I’ve often said that polls can’t tell you who is going to win, even just three weeks from Election Day. They can give some indication of momentum, or where things have settled out, however. Here, it’s already clear that Harris took the momentum early, and there is no indication that Trump has somehow seized it back from her.

On the other hand, because this is an election about turnout and enthusiasm, Democrats are already putting up impressive numbers in the early voting. The “blue firewall” in Pennsylvania is already nearly half constructed, based on mail-in ballot returns and a back of napkin target of an Election Day lead of ~400,000 votes for Harris. In states like Michigan, Democratic counties are returning ballots in numbers far higher than Republican ones. The Harris ground game remains strong and effective, while the Trump campaign is flailing and feels directionless as Trump spends his time on vanity rallies in solidly blue states like New York and California.

I’ll have more to say in the coming weeks about early voting patterns, which in my opinion matter far more than any polls. This is especially true now that we know and, I hope, understand just how polluted those polls are by GOP mischief.