Fake poll?

We are 15 months away from the next presidential election. It just seems like we’re constantly in a fever pitch about the 2020 cage match between The Donald and one of the many Democrats vying to run.

Trump is famous (infamous?) for deriding any polling that shows him losing anything, let alone to some of the Democrat characters now running. In the 2016 cycle he called them “fake news” or “fake polls.”

The Donald is still at it, calling recent polling showing him losing bigly as being “fake polls.”

What may be exceptionally galling to Trump is that the most prominent recent polling was conducted by Fox. The executive summary:

The survey asks: “If the 2020 presidential election were held today, how would you vote if the candidates were…”

Joe Biden (50%), Donald Trump (38%)

Bernie Sanders (48%), Donald Trump (39%)

Kamala Harris (45%), Donald Trump (39%)

Elizabeth Warren (46%), Donald Trump (39%).

So I guess that Trump’s fragile ego will insist that Fox News, which was a great help to him in 2015-16, is now part of the “fake news, enemy of the people” cadre of Never Trumpers.

But, as Trump will be among the first to insist, polling had Hillary winning in 2016 (mandatory exclamation marks for everything Trump says or tweets inserted here).

Therefore, his thought and argument goes, they are still wrong and he will win in 2020. Perhaps.

The polling was one sample, and we all should be aware that what counts is not the total numbers across the nation who voted for Trump or the Democrat. What counts is what states they live in.

In 2016 Trump lost the popular vote, and barely won the only vote that counts, the Electoral College tally. It is also probable that in 2016 the Green Party’s candidate for president, Jill Stein likely cost Hillary Clinton the electoral votes of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Which put Trump over the top.

As Trump usually says when he doesn’t know, “we’ll see what happens.” Which is why we don’t use polling, except at the voting booth, to determine our president.