The Lurking Fear . . .

The Omnivore got some unsolicited praise for having kept blogging and it reminded him that there are some people out there who enjoy his content. So he's making an effort to weigh in with more regularity (as opposed to: only when he has something to say that he is pretty certain no one else has said quite that way).

In this case: The Lurking Fear of the Hidden Trump Voters

The Fear: That There Is A Groundswell Of Support For Trump That The Polls Are Not Capturing

Is there? Why would that be?

Theory 1: Retribution
Well, the conservative story is that if you admit to liking turnip then you could lose your job--your car will get keyed, and so on (the idea of one's car, bearing McCain or Romney stickers, being trashed when parked "downtown" was a staple of 2008-2012 right wing message boards).

Today, of course, BLM will fire mortar shells into your house or you will be forced to get gay married or something awful like that.

That being the case, they, of course, would not tell a human pollster who they were voting for! (or, perhaps, they are just "shy" and don't want the pollster to think badly of them.

The Problem: automated polls show about the same numbers as human polls. Are they afraid to tell a machine? Maybe--but it's not that likely.

Theory 2: They Don't Answer Polls
In this case, Trump voters are so mad at the horrible fake-news suppression polls that they just hang up when the pollster calls leading to large undercounts. Libs, on the other hand, eagerly punch in all the buttons claiming they LOVE Biden because he will bulldoze their carbon-emitting suburbs or some shit.

The Problem: Almost nobody answers polls these days. While polls have a dirtier reputation on the right than on the left, the idea of hate-casting where you tell some pollster what you really think of them and their lefty-God Biden is a real thing too. In order to believe this is wide spread you have to believe that all these Trumpaloos don't want to mouth off if given a chance.

All the "heartland" reporting where an intrepid reporter goes to that diner and asks the salt of the earth people there who they are voting for and it turns out to be Trump 'cause he'll kick all the n-words out--says otherwise. People in person with a microphone in their mush are happy to screech about their Trump-love.

Theory 3: The Polls Are Just Stupid
In 2016 The Polls. Got. It. Wrong. Well, no--sorta. As an Omnivorous reader likely knows, the polls for the US were pretty on-target. The polls in some of the Blue-Wall states were actually bad: they did not properly weight for education of the voters and that turned out to be a big deal. And, of course, the analysis of the raw polls was, in many cases, pretty bad. Of course 538 gave Trump around a 30% chance to win and he won by .-04% of the total votes (i.e. it was a teeny tiny amount of votes across a handful of the right states that gave him his victory--a super-narrow margin).

But: what if the polls are just wrong again?

The Problem: There can always be an X-factor that will screw up your model. In this case The Omnivore would put more money on The Russians than The Pollsters.

The Bottom Line
For a lot of people 2016 was traumatic and well it should have been: the results are over 100 thousand dead Americans with no end in sight. The idea that Trump would fold at the fist sign of a real crisis was the most predictable outcome of 2016 could have had . . . and here we are.

On the other hand, Biden is kind of genetically engineered to beat Trump. He's like a smooth glass surface of moderate likability--Trump's particular brand of identity politics can't get a grip on anything there . . . how do you go after the old, moderate, white guy? Also: Trump can run as an outsider victim with his base--which is what he's doing--what he'll always do--but that isn't going to convince anyone who isn't plugged directly into his victim complex.

No, Biden has the best chance to beat Trump and Trump, facing a real crisis for which he has nothing prepared, is in the weakest possible position for him to be in. If there was ever a case where the polls seemed right, it's this.

But don't get comfortable (ain't NOBODY comfortable): go and fucking vote.