The Trump Transformation the Polls Missed

Here's to hoping it survives and is generational.

I appreciated Salena Zito's analogizing of the American electorate as vast "tectonic plates" that appear permanent and unmoving in the moment, until they suddenly emit great and unexpected energy, and then the resulting landscape is vastly different than it was before. Zito was among the first observers that Trump and Trumpism would significantly alter American politics, perhaps generationally, by altering the electorate itself: who turned out to vote and who they voted for when they did.

To be historically accurate, Trump was the result of Obama's progressive overreach which instigated a groundswell of disaffected voters who would, over time, no longer call the Democrat party their home: blue collar workers, owners of small businesses, religious people of all stripes, parents who want opportunities for their kids - and eventually young people who aspired to the same shot at middle class stability as their parents' generation. What we transactionally call "normies", but for which the Germans (of course) have a very specific term, landesleute (lahn-des-loy-ta)- or "people of the land" or nation. People whose identity is deeply held in the nation itself. This is more than "patriotism" as we call it - it has more to do with personal identity than external ideals. Obama's progressive vision for America was seen, and rightly so, as a direct threat to the personal values of the American landesleute: rewards for hard work, honesty, integrity, decency, frugality and faith.

Obama and "the ones we've been waiting for" promised to change everything. Don’t like it? Learn to code! we were told. Seriously? You’re in your 40s, married and have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, and they just shut down the only source of livelihood within 50 miles…and you’re supposed to learn to code? It’s not just needless dumbassery, it’s life-destabilizing - as in “kids, we have to sell the house at a loss and move in with grandma for a while because there’s no jobs here anymore” - multiplied by millions. That thing your grandparents did, your parents did, everybody you know did? Yeah, we just made that stop. Go code.

The generational changes to the electorate this precipitated were not at all apparent to observers until the shocking upset of 2016, which "nobody" saw coming - except a bunch of us, including Zito, did. The media and pollsters would call this "the Forgotten Man" who'd been tuned out by Obama elites - in fact, it was the landesleute that Trump had instinctively tuned in to.

Trump's four years were always and everywhere about restoring "the land" (the nation and most importantly its government) to the landesleute. The elites fought him every step of the way. People noticed. They also noticed how much better off they were, in economic fact, and how much better they felt about the future of their nation and their aspirations. Hope was being restored. Normalcy.

But then Covid happened and once again the nation lurched politically and spasmodically, inexplicably, to usher in a Biden presidency that put the Obama progressive vision on steroids. And with complete control of the legislative branch, Democrats rammed through nation-breaking laws and spending (on straight, party line votes) that shocked the people. "Never let a crisis go to waste" was justification for certifiably insane policies. Biden’s executive orders alone broke the nation’s back while Pelosi’s and Schumer’s onslaught of spending crushed the economy. When gas goes to $5 a gallon - everywhere - people notice. When their utility bill doubles, their groceries are now unaffordable and that desperately needed new car is out of reach, people notice.

And now here we are in 2024. Democrat policies have wrecked not just the nation, but the world itself. Everything is seemingly spinning out of control. Obama was famous for "pivoting" from one crisis (of his own making) to the next. The Biden team never had such political adeptness, they just floundered - and denied it was even happening. They denied the crisis at the border - until blue city mayors screamed in pain. They denied inflation was happening, until it was undeniable. One cannot hide incompetence of this magnitude. People noticed.

Pollsters have been playing catch-up to this transformation ever since Trump came down the escalator in June 2015, and 2024 is no different They're still playing catch-up.

I don't know Harris ever really had a true lead in polling - we'll never know. Pollsters rely on turnout models to forecast what the demographic of the electorate will actually be come election day. The most recent "model" is the 2020 election - but 2020 will always be an asterisk election because of mass mailed ballots and Covid rules. The Republicans vastly improved their voter registration and early vote strategy this year, while tightening ballot security (nowhere near perfect, but a far sight better than 2020). So relying on 2020 results for your turnout model would have been a poor choice - but one which clearly favored Harris. I believe the "turnout models" are now tuning into the 2024 reality.

If the emerging models hold, Trump will win this race in a wipeout. And for the same reason he won in 2016 and would have won in 2020 if not for the Covid rules. Only now the landesleute are fully mobilized (fully awake to the reality) and willing to take their nation back from the progressive elites.

If Trump does win, he will bring in a significantly different crowd to staff the federal government this time. He was naive last time - and he’s learned his lesson. He has much better understanding of how Leviathan works and a much clearer perception of where the “trust centers” lie in our nation. I anticipate a second Trump presidency will “cement in” these tectonic changes to the electorate - hopefully for a generation.

I started this piece to explain the pollster’s dilemma, but I think the story is bigger and more important than that. Eight years ago, we wondered what the “Trump effect” would be on the Republican party. Today, we can clearly see that. But will there be a larger effect, on the nation as a whole?

Only four more years will tell.