In my last column I discussed the Republican and Democratic races for President, and mentioned that in my view the candidacy of Donald Trump is so unconventional that there are scenarios where he underperforms or outperforms the polls.
With only a week before the first votes are cast in the Iowa caucuses, and two weeks before the first real primary in New Hampshire, I’d like to review why I believe there is a chance Donald Trump could outperform the poll numbers.
While the Trump candidacy for President has no parallel on the Presidential level I believe there have been two gubernatorial races where outsiders shook-up the political order and outperformed the pre-election polls. The two races that I believe best represent the dynamics of the Trump campaign are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura when they ran for Governor of California and Minnesota, respectively.
To test my suspicion I have used them as proxies to measure how Trump may perform on Election Day versus his final poll numbers.
I have looked at the polling data to see how the late poll numbers for Ventura and Schwarzenegger were reflected in the final results. Like the candidacy of Donald Trump, Ventura and Schwarzenegger were billed as inexperienced in the field of politics with no experience in governing.
In the 1998 race for Governor in Minnesota the polls taken the last month of the campaign Reform Party Candidate Jesse Ventura was polling between 15 to 21 per cent of the vote. It was a three-way race and the Republican and Democratic candidates were bunched together around 35 percent each. On Election Day, Ventura got nearly 37 percent of the vote while the Republican had 34 and the Democrat 28.
Ventura outperformed the polls and won.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected California Governor in a complicated recall election; his regular cycle election was in 2006 when he ran for a full term. In the final month of the 2006 California Governor’s race Arnold Schwarzenegger never polled over 50 percent, his poll numbers varied from 40 to 49 percent.
On Election Day he won with nearly 56 percent of the vote.
What is the possible explanation for the inability of pollsters to get accurate polling data for these unconventional candidates? Where respondents hesitant to answer Ventura or Schwarzenegger to the pollsters? Did last minute deciders go overwhelmingly to the non-traditional candidate?
Whatever the explanation it is a pattern that could point to results where Donald Trump outperforms the polls in the upcoming primaries.
The issue of polling has also become more complicated with the spread of cell phones. While pollsters have tried to compensate for this trend, with more voters keeping old cell phone numbers, with area codes that sometimes don’t reflect where they live and vote, accuracy can take a hit. While younger people tend to have a lower participation rate, they are very likely to have no landline, and be difficult to capture in a poll.
To the extent that the candidates, Bernie Sanders or Trump, appeals to younger voters the trend of mobile phones could skew results to an older voting population.
Next Monday, with the Iowa Caucuses, the real campaign begins, and I for one am looking forward to see who Americans vote for once they close the curtain and mark their ballots.
Tom Block is a public policy consultant who had a 21-year career with JP Morgan Chase where he served as head of government relations in New York City and created a Washington research product. He also created the bank’s EU Government Relations program and developed a new position as U.S. Government Policy Strategist focusing on how U.S. government policy impacts capital markets. He has an extensive government and banking background, has worked on political campaigns and as a speech writer. He is a family trustee of Bernheim Arboretum in Louisville and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from American University. He and his wife make their home in Kentucky. He is a regular contributor to nkytribune.com. Contact him at tomblockct@aol.com.