I Don’t Trust Many of The Polls

I don’t trust the polls. As much as I would like to, I don’t trust the polls. I am finding it hard to believe what the data is saying. I simply don’t trust the polls.

One of the reasons I am having a hard time believing this data is because so many journalists, 96 percent of them, made campaign contributions to one candidate, Hillary Clinton, out of the four potential winners.

There is nothing wrong or sinister about journalists making campaign donations. Journalists, just like other people, are free to donate to whomever they please.

What bothers me is the same narrative these journalists project in the mass media as truth. “Whose truth,” someone once asked me in an open forum about justice in America. I’m having a difficult time discerning exactly whose truth is being broadcast over the airwaves and published in the news journals.

Statistics, I learned as a college freshman, could be and often are twisted to mean a variety of things. In my mind this fact alone makes journalists suspect, especially when reports indicate nearly 100 percent of them gave money to a single campaign.

There is no wonder that they all seem to be singing from the same hymnal. The same narrative prevails from CNN to ABC to NBC, etc. The exception being, FOX News, where I presume the other 4 percent of journalists donated to the Donald Trump campaign.

In all honesty, I have not donated to any campaign, although I did pledge $25 to one campaign, but have yet to make good on that pledge.

According to the major political polls, Clinton will be the clear winner in the General Election contest on November 8.

The only questions remaining in the minds of the political pundits spinning the polling data are: How large her margin of victory will be? Will her skirt tails pull down ballot Democrats to victory? How will she governed a nation torn apart by the most divisive presidential election in the last 150 years?

In spite of this narrative on almost all news mediums on the air, on the internet and in print, I just do not believe most of these polls are accurate.

There is one Poll, the Investor Business Daily (IBD) that has the race coming down to the wire. While the masses do not read IBD, I have been reading it religiously since 2004. I have found IBD to be weeks, sometimes months ahead of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, on financial and political trends.

I trust the IBD poll because they have been on the money with their presidential election projections since 2008. Also, among the polls, the IBD poll has a vested financial interest in getting the figures right for their readers, who are mainly investors. Their investors need to know who will be governing the country so they can determine where to put their investments. While other polls may have a favorite candidate they want to propell to victory for political reasons.

According to the October 26 IBD poll, the race is a virtual tie. Clinton, is favored by 41.8 percent of Americans and  Trump by 41.2 percent.

A statistic that should be troubling to Clinton supporters is that she is favored by less than 80 percent of Black Americans. No Democrat in modern history has won the presidency without carrying at least 90 percent of the Black vote.

Based upon this poll result, Clinton has 77 percent of the Black vote and Trump is expected to receive 8 percent of all Black votes casted.While 6 percent of Black Americans support Jill Stein and 4 percent favor Gary Johnson.

If Clinton could isolate Stein and Johnson and pick up their Black support it would put her at 87 percent of Black support and just shy of the total Black vote she would need to ensure her victory.

What also should trouble the Clinton campaign is that Trump is splitting the vote of white women, garnering 42 percent to 41 percent for Clinton. As expected, Trump leads Clinton among white men 57 percent to Clinton’s 30 percent.

Another area where the Stein and Johnson campaigns are poised to play the role of spoiler is with the Latino vote. IBD has Clinton with 50 percent of the Latino vote and Trump picking up 25 percent. The kicker is that both Stein at 9 percent and Johnson with 10 percent of the Latino vote have nearly 20 percent between them.

I believe these numbers are a truer picture of where the race stands 13 days from the election. Hold onto to your hats, ladies and gents, if the other polls are skewered by pandering political pundits, election night could be a nail bitter.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

SOURCES:

http://www.investors.com/politics/ibd-tipp-presidential-election-poll/