BOops! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing, except to drive you bonkers. Oh look: Donald Trump is up two points. Wait, it looks like Kamala Harris is up five points. Alas, now Trump is up one-nineteenth of a point. Now, according to an NBC News poll out Sunday, the most debated. Trump and Harris are neck and neck.
As the US election approached, I had a tough turnout. Can you put the bad stuff to rest already? As we all know, polling is an inexact science at the best of times. More importantly, all the results of the latest Trump-Harris polls are within the margin of error. This new poll shows Harris tied with Trump (within the margin of error), while a September poll showed Harris leading Trump (also within the margin of error) may mean the Harris honeymoon is officially over, but ultimately, it's not a big deal. You can pore over the numbers endlessly, but the truth is that when it comes down to it, no one knows what's going to happen in November other than it's (probably) pretty close. Polls are basically astrology for political nerds at this point.
Speaking of which, professional astrologers have their own dark methods of predicting election results, and they're just as confused as everyone else. Laurie Rivers, an astrologer-turned-political analyst with more than 235,000 TikTok followers, told the Economist that she sees Harris winning “overwhelmingly.” Meanwhile, another influential astrologer, Amy Tripp, has said that Trump will win and that he can make “objective” predictions because he is an Aquarius.
I'm not an Aquarius, but I'm into some “objective” forecasting. I recently devised two unconventional polling methods, the results of which I present exclusively in this column. Methodologically, both studies were conducted in Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania, the most important swing state in the United States. In other words: more serious stuff.
Let's start with Arva's Little Walk poll. On Monday I counted all the political signs I saw on people's houses on the 10-minute walk from my house to my kid's preschool. The final tally? Twenty-six Harris/Walls signs, zero Trump signs and one sign “Giant Meteor 2024”. (I don't own that sign, but I share the sentiment.) In short: A giant meteor is more likely to win my little stretch of Philadelphia than Trump. What does this mean? Well, that means I live in a liberal bubble. Also, I'm probably on some sort of neighborhood watch list now that I've been staring into so many strangers' windows.
Let's call the next experiment the Rascal Eats a Treat poll. I put a brown treat (representing Harris) in one hand and a pink treat (representing Trump) in the other, then asked my dog Rascal to take one hand. To Rascal's delight, I ran this experiment several times. And guess what? Each time he chose the Harris indicator. At first I thought, I mean, my dog is a genius trapped in the tiny body of a Chihuahua. Then, of course, Rascal realized he could taste the difference between the treats and preferred one artificial flavor to the other. As an objective Aries, I agree that this poll doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny.
The Rascal Treat Test is not as ridiculous as it sounds. The Baskan Bakery Cincinnati has been running the Presidential Cookie Poll since 1984. It sells cookies with candidates' faces on them and the best-selling cookie candidate has won nine out of 10 elections (as of 2020). A random bakery is right several times Alan Lichtman is the famous professor of the 13 “keys” of the White House. (Lichtman 2020 is right but 2000 is wrong.) And the bakery has certainly done better than that. Many pollsters.
Before the Guardian is inundated with complaints from the Association to Protect the Reputation of Political Polls, I should make it clear that – in all seriousness – polls are not a waste of time. The latest NBC poll is a reminder that America is a deeply divided country and that this election will be won by the margins. And my own polls show that the Rascal is a dog with great taste.
