jimnyc
05-04-2020, 02:23 PM
Sure hope Newt is spot on, and I believe so. I think it's way too early for the polls, and also remember the day before 2016 election.
--
New Gingrich: 'If elections were today' polls are meaningless. Biden will implode come November
As a student of history, it is painful to watch today's so-called reporters and analysts pontificate about the November 3, 2020, election outcome. We are currently six months away from that event.
Yet analyst after analyst and TV host after TV host will claim if the election were held today Joe Biden would win—as if Trump supporters should panic or collapse in despair.
To some extent, this kind of presentism even infects the White House and Republican leaders and activists.
Yet presentism is incredibly misleading in a period of change. Remember: At this point in 2015, it was inconceivable that Donald Trump would become the Republican nominee. At this point in 2016, the same analysts and talking heads who are touting Biden today were touting Hillary Clinton and predicting Trump would be a disastrous failure taking the Republicans down to defeat.
But, of course, the elections are not held in early May.
The greatest modern example of the absurdity of presentism is the President Harry S. Truman re-election of 1948. This was the election that famously ended with a re-elected Truman smilingly waving a copy of The Chicago Tribune with the banner headline "Dewey Wins." Truman had a lot to smile about. He had beaten the national establishment against all odds. Let me first outline the sequence of that year's polling data and then show how much the situation of Trump parallels Truman's challenge in 1948.
In late summer, Thomas E. Dewey held a 13-point lead over Truman (49-36). This was a four-way race with the left-wing candidate, former Vice President Henry Wallace, at that point getting 5 percent and the Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond polling at 3 percent. In the post–Labor Day poll, Gallup still had Dewey ahead by 8 points. Truman went on to win by 49.6 percent to 45.1 percent, with Wallace and Thurmond each getting 2.4 percent.
The great lesson of the 1948 comeback by Truman is that campaigns matter. Truman knew this because in 1940, when he was running for re-election to the Senate in Missouri, both the Kansas City and St. Louis Democratic machines set out to defeat him. With no big backers, then-Senator Truman got in a car with a driver and crisscrossed the state, savagely attacking the big city machines. Truman won the Democratic primary narrowly, 40.91 percent to 39.67 percent, with a third candidate getting the rest. Then Truman went on to win the general election 51.2 percent to 48.7 percent over the Republican.
Rest - https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingrich-if-elections-were-today-polls-are-meaningless-biden-will-implode-come-november-1501543
--
New Gingrich: 'If elections were today' polls are meaningless. Biden will implode come November
As a student of history, it is painful to watch today's so-called reporters and analysts pontificate about the November 3, 2020, election outcome. We are currently six months away from that event.
Yet analyst after analyst and TV host after TV host will claim if the election were held today Joe Biden would win—as if Trump supporters should panic or collapse in despair.
To some extent, this kind of presentism even infects the White House and Republican leaders and activists.
Yet presentism is incredibly misleading in a period of change. Remember: At this point in 2015, it was inconceivable that Donald Trump would become the Republican nominee. At this point in 2016, the same analysts and talking heads who are touting Biden today were touting Hillary Clinton and predicting Trump would be a disastrous failure taking the Republicans down to defeat.
But, of course, the elections are not held in early May.
The greatest modern example of the absurdity of presentism is the President Harry S. Truman re-election of 1948. This was the election that famously ended with a re-elected Truman smilingly waving a copy of The Chicago Tribune with the banner headline "Dewey Wins." Truman had a lot to smile about. He had beaten the national establishment against all odds. Let me first outline the sequence of that year's polling data and then show how much the situation of Trump parallels Truman's challenge in 1948.
In late summer, Thomas E. Dewey held a 13-point lead over Truman (49-36). This was a four-way race with the left-wing candidate, former Vice President Henry Wallace, at that point getting 5 percent and the Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond polling at 3 percent. In the post–Labor Day poll, Gallup still had Dewey ahead by 8 points. Truman went on to win by 49.6 percent to 45.1 percent, with Wallace and Thurmond each getting 2.4 percent.
The great lesson of the 1948 comeback by Truman is that campaigns matter. Truman knew this because in 1940, when he was running for re-election to the Senate in Missouri, both the Kansas City and St. Louis Democratic machines set out to defeat him. With no big backers, then-Senator Truman got in a car with a driver and crisscrossed the state, savagely attacking the big city machines. Truman won the Democratic primary narrowly, 40.91 percent to 39.67 percent, with a third candidate getting the rest. Then Truman went on to win the general election 51.2 percent to 48.7 percent over the Republican.
Rest - https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingrich-if-elections-were-today-polls-are-meaningless-biden-will-implode-come-november-1501543