Some Thoughts From Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar Group

In the post-Obama election cycles, the Trump Era, the pollster who has most consistently gotten things right--including naming swing states where Trump needed to win "beyond the margin of fraud"--has been Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar Group. Yesterday an interesting article--for those interested in such matters--appeared which presented in its second half some of Cahaly's thoughts not merely on what has been happening with polling and with recent elections, but also some worthwhile thoughts going forward. Check it out:

Trafalgar: The Pollster That Keeps Getting It Right

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Among his insights, Cahaly understands the design of the polls themselves can drastically alter who responds to the sample. “Long questionnaires are just not realistic,” he said. “... No normal person will take the time to answer 30-question polls.”

Cahaly also thinks that what he calls “social desirability bias” can impact polling results. ... “People are hesitant to admit that they will vote for someone who is controversial. You have to get that answer.”

Cahaly has developed a variety of techniques to do just that. ...

“In 2016, what we found is people didn’t want to admit they were voting for Trump,” he continued. “Clinton is saying everyone who’s voting for Trump is a deplorable and all this nonsense. People were hiding their feelings. In 2020, it was even worse. Due to this cancel culture stuff, conservatives didn’t even want to participate in a poll. Period.”

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“People are just tired of being judged,” he said. Cahaly believes that polling in the Trump era must find ways of measuring voter sentiment that address this obvious social desirability bias.

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One major example of polling failures in both the 2016 and 2020 elections was in gauging minority support for Republicans. Cahaly notes that Hispanics especially supported Republicans and President Trump, and not just in Florida and Texas. “It was all across the country, in Massachusetts and Wisconsin and California. When you talk to the polling establishment, they said the exit polls don’t indicate that. But you have to ask, how are they doing the exit polling? People are going to be less honest with you in person in exit polls when someone has a clipboard or an iPad.”

Cahaly thinks Trump’s true gains with minorities have been underreported. “I will tell you that across the country Trump did better than 35% with Hispanics as an average and he did better than 25% with African-Americans,” he said.

On the 2022 midterm elections, Cahaly cautiously predicts that at this time, “it is looking like Republicans will take back the House.”

“Everything is right for Republicans to take back the House, but obviously Republicans could still mess that up. For instance, certain Republicans are still gathered together listening to someone like Frank Luntz,” he said. “We haven’t seen the reform that needs to happen on the level of party organization.”

As for what the key debates will be going forward, Cahaly points to the rapid rise of Critical Race Theory as a national issue. “Education issues are massive election issues around the country,” he said. “Critical Race Theory is a major election issue. What we’re finding is that average Americans care about what their children are being taught. If you look at the riots that we had last summer, the older generation was more upset that the violence didn’t bother their children. So many of these young people had been taught crazy things.”

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