Advoken's Blog

All signs at this date in late June point to a blow-out victory in November for Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden.  Major polls gave Biden a vote-total victory averaging nine points and a New York Times-Siena College Poll gave him 12-point national win and a 9-point win averaged across six key battleground states – all of which had been won by President Donald Trump in 2016.

So it’s Biden by a landslide, right?

Not so fast.  Remember it’s just over four months until election, and lots can happen in electoral politics in a short time. 

You only need go back to 2016.  Virtually all polling had Hillary Clinton winning by a modest margin then; and she did indeed win the popular vote (by 2.8 million) only to be brought down by the electoral college that Trump won thanks to narrow votes in three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, for instance, the highly respected Marquette University poll reported less than a week before the election that Clinton had a six-point lead.  The Clinton campaign felt Wisconsin would be a cinch for them in 2016; it cut back on campaign activities and, despite pleas by state Democrats, the candidate never stepped into the state to campaign.  When the tally was done, she lost by 27,000 votes; along with unexpected wins by Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, the electoral college results made it possible to Trump to win.

Now, in late June 2020, that same Marquette poll shows an 8-point Biden lead in Wisconsin and the Times-Siena poll a 9-point lead.

Let’s go back to 1948.  I was a college sophomore at the old University of Wisconsin – Extension Division two-year campus then, and I was campaigning hard for the Democrat Harry S. Truman over a popular Republican Thomas E. Dewey who had won renown and respect for his prosecutions against New York gangsters.  I was glum on that election day: Truman was apparently doomed and before I turned in to go to sleep on election night I heard NBC’s H. V. Kaltenborn, then radio’s most listened-to commentator, predict a Dewey win, even though the early results showed Truman unexpectedly ahead.  (Note: Kaltenborn was born in Milwaukee and raised in Merrill, leaving to serve in the Spanish-American War of 1898.)

The next morning, I rode the North Ave. trackless trolley to the Extension Division’s downtown Milwaukee campus and spied a newpaper box attached to a lightpost that contained the Chicago Tribune with its infamous headline: “Dewey Beats Truman.”  Later, I learned that Harry Truman had won!

The polls had predicted a Dewey victory of between 5 to 15 percentage points, but Truman won by 4.4 percentage points.  Burns Roper of the then-prestigious Roper Poll said the Truman win developed because an energized labor vote that had been encouraged by worries about Dewey’s strength in preelection polls.  Republicans felt their candidate would win “so they played golf that day,” Roper said.  (Read an account of 1948 election here.)

Does all this mean to disregard the polls?  No.  Polls can offer important clues as to trends facing candidates.  Today’s polls are uncannily accurate, but only at the time they are taken.

Lots can change in a few short days.  Many experts claimed the Clinton-Trump election changed about ten days before the 2016 election when FBI head James Comey reported that Clinton’s email practices were reckless, even though they may not have been criminal.  Who knows what true – or untrue – charges might be leveled against Joe Biden just days before the 2020 election?

The Trump campaign is loaded! They’ll have gazillions of bucks to throw into TV ads and other campaign strategies.  The Republicans continue to be united with Trump, even those GOPers who should know better.

Remember Harry Truman came back in 1948; can Trump do the same in 2020?  There is one critical difference between Truman and Trump: Harry Truman was a true man of the people; he was perceived as “one of us,” even with his boring, nasal-toned speech, his proclivity to using four-letter words, his simple way of life and his gaffs.  But he proudly claimed “the buck stops here” and he truly did make decisive decisions, even some that many questioned.  He was a leader.  Trump lacks those humbling characteristics – and he’s a coward who will never admit to a mistake or take responsibility for any decision.

Nonetheless, Trump is not dumb when it comes to commanding center stage and he won’t accept losing.  Be ready for anything from his camp. 

History thus leaves a warning!  Never be overconfident and work like hell for your candidate, no matter how one-sided an election may look.  I’ve participated in many a political campaign and nothing frustrates me more than when I am asked for my opinion as to whether my candidate would win the election.  I always refuse to answer that question.  My advice is to keep your eye focused on whatever you can do for your favored candidate, regardless how well or how badly he or she was doing in the polls. – Ken Germanson, June 25, 2020