I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that by now the pollsters -- those that haven't been fired, that is -- would have come up with more intelligent ways of informing us about the likely results of the elections after their miserable performances predicting the outcome of the UK referendum on Europe and of the general elections in 2015 in the UK, when not one single polling team came up with the right analysis of the future.
IF I WERE A SUSPICIOUS PERSON I might even consider that the pollsters -- in the main liberally-educated graduates from decent upper middle class homes with parents who probably went on protest marches against nuclear bombs in the sixties -- have been more interested in projecting the way people ought to vote in their opinion rather than stating what people are really telling them.
THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS EVENT in this wishful-thinking-about-the-electorate is what happened over the cover of Newsweek magazine, which prepared and shipped out an edition (shown below) "celebrating" (sic) Hillary Clinton's victory. Interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan of Sky News earlier today, Jim Impoco, the editor-in-chief of Newsweek, held up an issue of the magazine live on air and threatened to burn it. Murnaghan wisely advised against this, suggesting a fire hazard, but the fact is that the issue is probably worth a few hundred dollars after newsagents across the USA and the UK received (and sold) it on Wednesday morning.
IMPOCO SENSIBLY ADDED that "this cover just shows that we are stupid." In a gleeful moment of me being allowed to mix up a few metaphors, it might be seen as unhelpful for me to add that the stupidity Impoco correctly admits includes the fact that his publication not only jumped the gun over the results of the presidential election, but also backed the wrong horse.
BUT THEY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN so stupid had they listened to the only poll that made any sense to me. This was conducted by the company run by the British Lord Ashcroft, who had the good sense to ask people the most important question during the "run up" (sic) to this election, which was "Have you told your close family and friends who you are going to vote for?"
A REMARKABLE FIFTEEN PERCENT of people stated that they had not revealed their choices; this is particularly remarkable in the USA -- not a country in which the population is renowned for its dress sense -- where many people are happy to saunter around in training suits and baseball caps, often with political slogans or the names of sports teams written on them, and have bumper stickers on their enormous vehicles bearing such unnecessary statements as "No to Gun Control" or "Republican and Proud".
THUS AN INTELLIGENT READING OF THIS PERCENTAGE (i.e., one carried out by me) would lead one to believe that at least half of this 15% must be women who are going to vote Trump but are ashamed to tell their mothers/daughters/girl friends etc. As well as probably half of the other 7%, in all making nearly ten percent of the electorate.
NO WORKING CLASS MAN WOULD BE ASHAMED to tell his co-workers in the factory that he was going to vote Trump. And all of the screaming harridans who were going to vote for Secretary Mrs Clinton would have been proud of the fact and probably would have regularly shouted about this to their family and their female friends in the dorm, barrio, hood, leafy suburb or golf course, where they would meet up for discussions about Rousseau, eat burritos or burgers, drink mint juleps or enjoy charity bridge tournaments.
THEREFORE, IN MY ANALYSIS, TRUMP would win about ten percent more of the electorate than the polls showed. Almost exactly what happened, and indeed what I saw on the TV screen when I woke up at seven on Wednesday morning; almost exactly what happened when I stayed up all night to watch the result of the UK referendum, and almost exactly what happened in the last general election in Britain. Unfortunately, living outside of the UK, I cannot bet money on the results. The odds were appealing.
