Conor sat down. “A poll in the newspaper says Republicans are 14 points behind Democrats – is that true?” He was asking about the generic ballot question in the poll.
Both modern and old-fashioned, after law school Conor returned to his small town, practiced law with his father. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather he’s a Democrat. But an unusual Democrat. He votes for the man not the party. When a friend – a Republican – ran for Congress, Conor helped him. He has no use for politicians – in either party – who lie or deceive or sell favors. I said:
“Most polls you see in the media are done on the cheap – for publicity. I read the poll you’re talking about. Someone spent a lot of money on it – it looks legitimate.”
He laughed. “So if you were going to Las Vegas you’d bet Democrats win next election?”
I told him a story.
The first pollster I worked with years ago had a rare gift: A poll is hundreds of pages long and there’s nothing in it but numbers. When Arthur Finkelstein looked at numbers he saw pictures. I’ve never known anyone else who did that.
Staring down at the first poll he did for Jesse Helms in 1972, turning pages, Arthur told Jesse hardly a soul outside Raleigh had ever heard of him.
That didn’t sit well with Jesse – after a decade doing TV and radio editorials, Jesse was certain he’d made ‘Jesse’ a household word. Arthur’s poll fractured that myth.
Arthur read more numbers, told Jesse half the people who’d heard his editorials didn’t like him. Another myth vanished.
Jesse asked how far ahead he was.
Arthur swallowed. “You’re thirty points behind.”
Tom Ellis, a lawyer, chairman of Jesse’s campaign, leaned forward. “How’s Nixon doing?”
Arthur grinned – Nixon was ahead by thirty-five points.
The crimson flush on Jesse’s face spread down his neck – he snorted he didn’t believe in polls. Stood up, strode out of the room, slammed the door behind him.
Tom Ellis grinned at Arthur – for the next six hours they bent over five hundred pages of poll numbers. Arthur closed the poll, boiling five hundred pages of numbers down to three words, told Tom Ellis to say over and over in TV ads: Nixon Needs Helms.
Grasping Nixon’s coattails was the key to Jesse winning.
And that was how Jesse got elected to the Senate.
Polls aren’t perfect. Like all human creations they have flaws. But they have one unique strength: I’m now 73 years old, white, male, conservative, and live in a suburb. That’s the world I live in, see every day. But it’s only a small piece of the real world – go to the State Fair and you see the real world. Polls are the one way in politics to see beyond the small world you live in.
Conor nodded: “So if a Republican won by 14 points last year – that poll means his race is now a toss-up?”
That’s not as unusual as it sounds. Unhappy with Trump, this election voters are voting against Republicans – that’s happened in off-year elections for years. It happened to Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
That’s bad news for Trump but it’s also an old warning that carries an old virtue in it – it’s how Americans tell a president whose pride blossoms after he sits down in the White House: Remember, power’s not in your hands – it’s in ours.
