I hope all of you understand why the Republicans suddenly came up with a pseudoscientific theory that all the public polling firms are skewed toward Obama and that Romney is going to win convincingly. They didn’t launch this theory during the summer. They launched it about a week before the first voters started going to the polls in places like Iowa. They launched it just before most states cut off new voter registrations.
Here’s the deal. Nate Silver, the country’s preeminent statistical interpreter of polls, says that Mitt Romney would have a 1.9% chance of winning if the election were held today. In truth, a small part of the election is being held today. Voters are already voting. If the people on the right began to absorb the hopelessness of Romney’s cause, they would have no motivation to register to vote. They would have no motivation to register other people to vote. It’s just a psychological fact that people are less likely to go vote for a sure loser. People will begin to digest the fact that Obama is getting a second term, and their activism and enthusiasm will wither on the vine.
It’s also a psychological fact that people are way more motivated to vote for president than they are for Senate and House races. When people find better things to do on election day than vote for Mitt Romney, they also fail to vote for all the other Republicans on the ballot.
Both sides know this. It’s why the Democrats are throwing these polling numbers so aggressively in the Republicans’ faces. We’re trying to demoralize them. And the reason the right is feeding their base these lies about the polls is because they are trying to prevent their base from being demoralized. But this isn’t an example of “both sides do it.” The Democrats are telling the truth. The president has an eleven-point lead in the swing states, and has reached an untouchable 52% in those contests. Mitt Romney is getting his ass kicked. This isn’t hype or hyperbole. The Republicans, however, are just lying to their base.
Lying to their base has become an essential tool in their voter turnout strategy. Unlike in the debates, where the game is to lower expectations for your candidate so that they can exceed them, the goal with the polls is to increase expectations so that field workers will keep their morale up and apathy and resignation won’t set in.
The poll skewing theory really isn’t even about the presidential race, which is, barring a miracle, already lost. It’s about preventing Romney’s campaign from collapsing so badly that he has severely negative coattails in House and Senate races.
If the truth gets out, that’s exactly what will happen. Therefore, it’s time to wage another all-out war against the truth.
