The Poll Sucks
You might’ve read the NYT poll that came out over the weekend. I personally got so many texts about it that I briefly considered tossing my phone into the ocean, but my son was getting married and I had to post Instas.
Still, you have no idea how close I came.
Now, I’m not joining the Chicken Little brigade. But yeah – the NYT poll is not good. Even the slightest indication that Trump’s pudgy little hands will get closer to the nuclear codes is grounds for existential dread.
But I’ve worked enough presidential campaigns to understand the context here. In fact, I’d say it’s a tradition for an incumbent President to get a doomsday poll or two when they’re a year out from Election Day.
My favorite is the 2011 NYT headline that read, “Is Obama Toast?” when a similar poll came out around this time. Cut to a year later and the man cruised to a four-point victory. Hell, I remember similar ones about Clinton, Reagan, and even a few about Nixon. Yes, I was 9, but remember: I was born for the political fight.
The babbling heads and political prognosticators will continue to poke and prod this poll dry. But really, there’s nothing in there that we didn’t already know. President Biden has work to do with key chunks of swing voters. Our targets need to be reminded just how nuts MAGA has become.
I will put the snark aside and point something out: There is nothing in this new poll that is going to change our strategy one bit. This is a winnable fight.
We’ve always known what we had to do, and we’ve always known that it could work. We were right in 2020. We were right in 2022. And we’ll be right in 2024.
We’re still targeting those Bannon-line voters and building the largest pro-democracy movement this country has ever seen. Our message campaigns, targeted ad buys, and the voter mobilization work we’re doing are all key parts of that strategy. We’ve got more planned and we’re excited to buckle down and do that hard work over the next 52 weeks.
What we need from you now is this: stay engaged and stay faithful to the fight. I know you don’t need to hear that from me, but I need you to pass on the word to your friends and family.
I will leave you with this thought. How do we know our strategy is working? An independent group has been testing our ads. We didn’t even know about it until after the fact. When voters in Wisconsin saw our ad telling Joe Biden’s story, it moved them by over two percentage points. In a race that could come down to a few thousand votes, we turned the tide. (And, by the way, we did it in ‘20 and ‘22…)
-Rick