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CITYWATCH TODAY—It’s been a couple of weeks now since voters shocked the cream of America’s pollsters and made the Donald the next oval office occupant. How could they all be so wrong … the pollsters? And even as they try to explain, one has to ask the question: why would your explanations be any more right now?
However, courtesy of an LA Times story, I think I have a clue as to why so many polls failed.
In a front page analysis, the Times tried to explain why the County’s half cent permanent sales tax … Measure M …. was such a hit. Not only, the Times reminds us, is this a forever tax, many areas that voted for it will not benefit from it for years.
Three out of four city of Carson voters, the stumped Times says, supported Measure M “even though the city will not receive any rail investment and will wait for more than two decades for highway projects.”
The tax’s big victory, concludes LAT, “shows that voters are weary of Southern California’s traffic and are hungry for change.”
USC professor of public policy, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, thought about it and came up with the same answer: “It’s a statement of how frustrated and tired LA County voters are with the increasingly gridlocked lives they lead.”
Ya, well, not so fast. These are the kind of answers I might come up with. Me, a lowly editor. Not a policy expert or a polling maven. And, they sound like the conclusions ‘experts’ who don’t really know the voters they’re analyzing come to. As they did on Nov 8th when the Donald upset Ms. Hillary.
I think the analysts considerably underestimated voters dislike for Hillary Clinton. I think, as we mentioned here last week, they totally misunderstood that Trump supporters ‘took him seriously, but not literally.’ In the case of the County Measure M, I think they underestimated the ‘M’ ad campaign, misunderstood that the voters in Carson don’t just drive in Carson and see a benefit if freeways in general come unclogged. I think the voters of Carson looked at ‘M’ and saw jobs … which is personal. I think that if you considered the human element in this information-gathering business, you would improve the accuracy of your guestimating.
Ever gone to a doctor or a hospital with pain? The nurse asks, on a scale of one to ten, how bad does it hurt? Invariably, that question is followed by more discussion, because it’s impossible to know what a pain of ‘8 on the scale’ really feels like. And, of course, we are not all alike. An ‘8’ to me might be a ‘5’ to you.
So, how angry were the voters? How betrayed did they feel? Enough to vote for Mr. Trump? Enough to never vote for Ms. Clinton? I don’t think trying to measure my anger or hate on a scale works? As Professor Harold Hills says in ‘Music Man’ … “You gotta know the territory.” I say, it helps to know the folks you’re analyzing. Predicting. Defining. Speaking for. I’m angry. It’s an 8 on a scale of one to ten … doesn’t cut it. It leaves out the human dimension.
In Carson, it’s also the jobs … not just how soon the train will be stopping at a Carson station. I’m not going to be taking the train anyway. I’m going to be driving on those widened and repaired freeways. Gotta know the territory. Gotta know the folks you’re measuring. That’s at least one of the reasons the pollsters misfired. These are real people. What I think or feel on a scale of one to ten doesn’t cut it.
Just sayin’ …
Ken Draper-Editor, CityWatch
