Donald Trump seems to have a knack for outperforming expectations, doesn’t he? In 2016, the polls were all but crowning Hillary Clinton the next president, and yet, Trump swooped in and shocked the world. Fast forward to 2020, and while he lost to Biden, he still managed to outperform poll after poll, proving once again that the numbers just can’t seem to pin him down. Now, as we stare down another neck-and-neck race, Democrats and pollsters are starting to get that same uneasy feeling—what if Trump pulls it off again and strolls back into the Oval Office?
Take Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, for example. Even he’s a bit skeptical of the whole polling industry after what happened in 2016. “Polling has really been seriously damaged since 2016,” he said, admitting that Trump will be a tough contender in Pennsylvania, despite whatever rosy numbers the polls may show. It’s almost like the Democrats have been lulled into a false sense of security once again, believing that their small leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will hold. Spoiler alert: they didn’t last time.
Senator Raphael Warnock from Georgia is feeling the heat, too. He’s not convinced that the polls can give an accurate read on what’s really happening out there. And honestly, can you blame him? “We know this election is going to be close,” Warnock says, with a nervous energy that suggests he’s already bracing for a tight race in Georgia. Sure, the only poll that matters is on Election Day, but that’s exactly what should have Democrats sweating. Trump has made a habit of smashing expectations when it counts.
The real reason for all this Democratic hand-wringing? History. Let’s not forget that in 2020, Trump was supposedly trailing Biden by an average of five points going into the final months of the race. Yet, he only lost Pennsylvania by a measly 1.2 percentage points. That’s quite the gap between polling and reality, but it shouldn’t be a shocker—Trump did the same thing to Hillary in 2016, trailing her by anywhere from 3.5 to 7 points in Pennsylvania, only to come out on top. So, yeah, maybe the Dems should be a little nervous.
And then there’s the white working-class vote—something that Kamala Harris doesn’t exactly have in her back pocket. The Democratic Party may be puffing out its chest in public, but behind closed doors, they’re worried. Politico even reported that top officials fear Trump’s stronghold on working-class voters will break down that so-called Blue Wall again, just like he did eight years ago. It’s not hard to see why. Trump has a dedicated, blue-collar base that’s all in on his message, and if the polls are even slightly off (which, let’s face it, they usually are), he could easily snag another win.
In the end, the Real Clear Politics polling average shows Harris with a slim 2.2-point national lead. But if history is any guide, and Trump manages to outperform by even a small margin, we could be in for a repeat of 2016. Democrats might act confident, but they know what happened last time they underestimated him—and it looks like they might just be making the same mistake again.
