A Campaign That Ignores All Metrics

August 03, 2016

I asked Trump supporters how they would know if their man was not succeeding.

What criteria do they trust? If you show them a poll with bad numbers for Trump, they'll insist it's skewed. A poll could be "skewed," or more accurately, the sample could look really different from the type of turnout we would expect in the actual electorate. It could have too many men or too many women, too many of a particular age group, ethnic group, partisan breakdown, etcetera. Because we don't know precisely who's going to show up in the polls in November, it's impossible to say that the poll's projection of the electorate is wrong; we can only look at past election exit polls and get a sense of what's "normal."

This is why poll aggregation is generally seen as a little more reliable. Even if one pollster's sample is too heavy with one demographic, it's less likely that every pollster will make the same mistake or bad assumption. Trends are more important than the precise numbers; if multiple polls have the same candidate gaining support in the same time period, it's probably a genuine phenomenon.

Still, sometimes the polls in aggregate can still end up being off consistently. In 2014, Republicans performed better than their polls indicated in state after state. Nate Silver concluded, "The average Senate poll conducted in the final three weeks of this year's campaign overestimated the Democrat's performance by 4 percentage points. The average gubernatorial poll was nearly as bad, overestimating the Democrat's performance by 3.4 points."

But for all their flaws, the polls are the only regularly-updated measuring stick we have for determining if a campaign's efforts are working.

If Trump supporters don't insist a poll is skewed, they'll dismiss it as meaningless "at this point." What the confident Trump fans largely ignore is that we don't have Election Day anymore; we have Election Month — in some cases, more than a month.

Early in-person voting starts September 23 in Minnesota, September 24 in Michigan, September 25 in Vermont, September 29 in Illinois, October 3 in Nebraska, October 10 in Montana and South Carolina, October 11 in Indiana, October 12 in Arizona and Ohio, October 19 in Tennessee, October 24 in Wisconsin, October 27 in North Carolina, October 29 in Florida. Washington starts mailing out its ballots October 10. More than 31 percent of Americans cast their ballots early in 2012. As Yogi Berra said, "it gets late early out there."

Evidence is piling up that the Trump campaign isn't really even trying anymore, at least not in the way that even the Dole campaign did in 1996. The campaign itself hasn't reserved any air time, and the allied SuperPACs have barely reserved any:

Hillary Clinton and her allies are poised for a TV ad blitz of nearly $100 million dollars, compared to less than $1 million currently reserved on the airwaves by backers of Donald Trump.

According to ad-tracking data provided to NBC News by SMG Delta, Clinton's campaign and pro-Clinton group Priorities USA Action have reserved a combined $98 million through the fall so far, while pro-Trump PAC Rebuilding America Now has just about $817,000 set to air at this time.

We can argue whether television advertising is overrated or overestimated in terms of influential power, particularly in a presidential race. But to be outspent 100-to-1, or effectively have no television advertising in the fall?

John Harwood of the Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager: "Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal."

Trump fired two senior aides Monday. Yeah, I'm sure they were the real problem.

Trump is campaigning in Maine Thursday. One might find it a sign of hope that a rally scheduled for Plattsburgh, New York that day was canceled. With Trump facing long odds in all of the key swing states, there's no time to waste on his pipe dream of winning the Empire State.

(Mike Pence appears to be doing the heavy lifting in the swing states. Two stops in Colorado Wednesday, three stops in North Carolina and Virginia Thursday, at least one stop in Wisconsin Friday.)

Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, but now her spin is burrowing below the low bar set by her previous performances:

"It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagement that probably cost his life," spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in an interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

Captain Khan died in 2004, during the presidency of George W. Bush.

Ben Carson is lamenting how off-message Trump is this week. Demonstrating that he has no interest in unifying the party, Trump said he refused to endorse Paul Ryan in his primary.

There's new discussion about whether or not Trump will agree to the presidential debates after his accusation that the debate schedule was "rigged." Allahpundit points out the difficult but achievable way that Trump could make up a lot of ground, fast:

The smart play would be to study his ass off and shock the country with his surprising grasp of policy at the first debate. Everyone will be expecting Trump the loudmouthed clod; if instead they get Trump the statesman battling Hillary to a standstill, it'll show millions of casual voters that all of the hype about Trump being unready for the presidency was nonsense. And rest assured, there will be many millions of casual voters watching: The first debate between Romney and Obama drew nearly 70 million viewers, double what their speeches at the conventions that summer drew. A Trump/Clinton debate might blow the roof off in terms of viewership. As such, Trump delivering a surprising standout performance could change the election overnight by moving huge swaths of undecideds into his column. And, having delivered that, he could then preserve his victory by boycotting the second and third debates under whatever pretext he likes. All he has to do is turn in one excellent debate. And all he has to do to achieve that is prepare diligently.

But he's Trump, so he won't.

Our Ancestors Blamed Gremlins; We Blame 'Rigged' Systems

Trump's insistence that everything around him is "rigged" only reflects a broader cultural trend.

Our political world might simply be reflecting the culture at large, where unwanted outcomes are regularly attributed to rigged systems, from the NBA Playoffs, to Dancing with the Stars, to YouTube's payments to artists. Our ancestors blamed malevolent spirits and gremlins; now we blame the web of sinister and powerful but hidden forces that keep their thumbs on the scale.

Why has admitting mistakes and learning from defeat become too difficult? To acknowledge our own faults, flaws, and responsibility would give us less to say. It would require introspection and self-evaluation, not attention. We would have to turn away from the spotlight and television cameras and our social media platforms. Modern American culture simultaneously celebrates victims and mocks those who try hard but never quite succeed.

Casting blame, aspersions, and accusations of a rigged outcome ensures you're never quite defeated, just cheated. It's a much easier identity to adopt than that of one who fell short. You're not a "loser," to use one of Trump's other favorite words. You're "the one who should have won."

Forgive me for quoting Allahpundit twice in one newsletter:

None of this is about logic, I realize. It's about reassuring Trump fans that they're part of a "silent majority" even though the guy has hit 50 percent in precisely one national poll this year and couldn't even muster a majority of Republican primary voters despite Cruz and Kasich having quit the race a month before the final primaries.

What would it take to persuade a Trump supporter that they're not really part of a "silent majority" and that the reason that majority is so silent is because it's actually a minority? When does believing in the "silent majority" that never shows up in polls but who will show up in November become like believing in the Great Pumpkin?

ADDENDA: We now pay ransom to our "partners in peace," the Iranians.

I'm scheduled to appear on CNN International at 2:30 p.m. today and on CNN in the 3 p.m. hour.