Election predictions from real people

Sometimes in American politics, average people have more predictive power than the most touted electoral polls and commentators.

In 1980, when I was first getting involved with politics and public service, I was driving back from a meeting at the Littleton Pepsi-Cola plant when I saw my gas gauge running a little low, so I pulled into a small country gas station. This was during the latter stages of the Reagan/Carter presidential campaign where most public polls showed the race as even. Seasoned political observers were saying Carter would win because Democrats had successfully painted Reagan as a dangerous warmonger and nothing but an aging B-grade movie actor.

Even back then, Reagan campaigned on his distaste and distrust of socialism. Things have not changed as much as many have hoped, apparently.

As I walked in, I saw five older men sitting at a table playing checkers near a wood stove. All were smoking or spitting tobacco juice into a spittoon near the fire, but they were obviously enjoying each other’s company after a hard day’s work on the farm or in some agriculture-related business.

They invited me to pull up a chair and sit a spell, but I had to fill up and get back home to Durham. So I watched them make a few moves and struck up a light conversation. Since the election was a few weeks away, I asked them who was going to win the election, knowing they were all Southern Democrats and would say “Carter” in a breeze.

Much to my 24-year-old self’s surprise, each man emphatically said “Reagan” in a landslide. They went on to say Carter and the Democrats’ policies were wrong for America and especially for them in eastern North Carolina. They were so convincing, I went home and told friends what I had learned in that gas station. All of them shrugged their shoulders and laughed in disbelief.

Reagan went on to win the largest landslide defeat of an American president in history. Those guys sitting around a wood stove in a gas station between Littleton and Raleigh had a gut sense of what was going on in the electorate far better than anyone on the national news or in a major newspaper.

I had a conversation recently with an old friend that reminded me of the importance of talking to real people instead of relying on digital media content or the mainstream media. He is involved in the day-to-day operations of modern political campaigning. I wanted to ask him what he was seeing in the face of the growing storm cloud of socialism around the nation and North Carolina, and what he said reminded me of that 1980 meeting in the rural gas station.

First of all, he said, always remember no one won or lost a campaign in August of any election year. Real people are just too distracted by the heat and vacations to the beach to pay too much attention to what every politician or commentator says every day.

“However,” he said, “I have yet to see a person run out of their house in any North Carolina town with a big ‘hammer and sickle’ flag screaming they ‘can’t wait to become a socialist!’ Remember, the people who voted for Trump three times and gave Republicans legislative and congressional majorities since 2010 have not vanished into thin air, you know!”

He went on to say he has seen more people at his breakout sessions than ever before. Meetings that used to attract four people are now drawing 40 people or more; sessions where 10 people would come listen to a conservative speaker now have 100 or more packing the room.

On top of that, Republicans are signing up to help go door to door handing out literature and call people to make sure they are registered to vote and will then vote this fall. Both are in marked contrast to his experience in the past when Republicans have not matched the other side in terms of ground game and get-out-the-vote efforts.

It is hard to measure the motivation and enthusiasm for the typical voter based on generic polls that are seemingly everywhere nowadays. But if people are showing up in numbers to help Republicans as this guy reported, it shows they have taken the threat of democratic socialism seriously and are willing to do something about it.

Add to that the massive fundraising advantage for Republicans when the Democratic National Committee has $18 million in debt and meager fundraising totals, and this election could surprise as many people as 1980 did.