Former President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod said a recent Wall Street Journal poll showing President Biden’s approval rating hitting a new low is “very, very dark”…
Ronald Reagan polled lower in his third year, but you’re missing the point. We’re in wholly uncharted polling territory, because the pollsters haven’t figured out how to poll young people who don’t answer unknown numbers calling their cellphones, and they’re voting in unprecedented numbers.
In the mid-2010’s, the migration from landlines to cellphone-only households really got underway. We crossed the threshold where there were more cellphones than landlines in 2016, and it’s only continued from there. And an interesting thing started happening with polls around 2017 and 2018: They started consistently underestimating the strength of Democratic support in off-year and mid-term elections.
It’s why the “red wave” in 2022 turned out to be a pink dribble. It’s why Democrats did so unexpectedly well in the 2021 special elections. It’s why they also did well this year.
In 2024, people who were twelve years old in 2016 will be old enough to vote, and if the trends stay consistent, they will vote in droves. But none of them are answering pollster calls. And that makes polling them extraordinarily difficult.
Pollsters try to account for such things by adjusting weights and making various assumptions that they hope are accurate, but in the end you need actual data from real voters, and that’s just plain getting harder to get.
I’m not saying this poll looks good. It very much doesn’t. But at the same time, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of cynicism and apathy. It’s very possible this poll - like so many recent polls - is underestimating Democratic support.
No candidate that ever polled this low in their 3rd year has ever won reelection
Ronald Reagan polled lower in his third year, but you’re missing the point. We’re in wholly uncharted polling territory, because the pollsters haven’t figured out how to poll young people who don’t answer unknown numbers calling their cellphones, and they’re voting in unprecedented numbers.
In the mid-2010’s, the migration from landlines to cellphone-only households really got underway. We crossed the threshold where there were more cellphones than landlines in 2016, and it’s only continued from there. And an interesting thing started happening with polls around 2017 and 2018: They started consistently underestimating the strength of Democratic support in off-year and mid-term elections.
It’s why the “red wave” in 2022 turned out to be a pink dribble. It’s why Democrats did so unexpectedly well in the 2021 special elections. It’s why they also did well this year.
In 2024, people who were twelve years old in 2016 will be old enough to vote, and if the trends stay consistent, they will vote in droves. But none of them are answering pollster calls. And that makes polling them extraordinarily difficult.
Pollsters try to account for such things by adjusting weights and making various assumptions that they hope are accurate, but in the end you need actual data from real voters, and that’s just plain getting harder to get.
I’m not saying this poll looks good. It very much doesn’t. But at the same time, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of cynicism and apathy. It’s very possible this poll - like so many recent polls - is underestimating Democratic support.
There is still hope.
Reagan polled into the 50% range his third year, his lowest, into the 30s the beginning of his second year, January 1983.
75% of the polling was done online, and only 25% via telephone
And there was a varied mix of age ranges represented.