by John Stevenson
A
friend said that people are telling him they knew all along that Trump was
going to win. He opined that they didn’t
know it, and were just band-wagoneers or were puffing up their credentials as
astute observers and analysts of the political scene.
Well, here’s a news
flash. I predicted it, and I’ve got it
in black and white. Prove it? OK.
The Sunday evening before
election day, I was at a small gathering of fellow GOPers. After sufficient consumption of Rombauer
Chardonnay, the host asked us all to make predictions, and he documented the
results.
As you can see in the
accompanying image, we were called upon to predict four outcomes: which party
would control the Senate; which candidate would win the presidency; whether
Hillary Clinton would be indicted/impeached; and whether she would be
pardoned.
Let’s focus on the question
of which candidate would be elected president (the lower right quadrant of the
accompanying image). There were five of
us. You’ll see that two said Clinton,
three said Trump. To the right of my
name, note that I correctly predicted Trump the winner. I was among those three who got it right.
I don’t know the reasoning
of the other two (political astuteness, or clairvoyance, or just wishful
thinking). But my answer was based on analysis. Not a profound analysis, mind you, just a simple
analysis. I offer it here.
After Trump had been
nominated, in the lead-up to the general election, Trump supporters had a rough
go of it. Hillary Clinton called them
deplorable: racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic---and worse:
irredeemable. As we all saw on TV,
identifiable Trumpers were vilified, beaten, chased, egged, spat upon. Yard signs were set afire. After all, the Trumpians are deplorable and
irredeemable---so they deserve being attacked.
Even in our little valley,
Trump supporters felt they should hide their colors. Seemingly, many cars sported Hillary
decals---virtually none for Trump. No “Make
America Great Again” hats on display either.
Not because there weren’t Trump voters (they came to 24.9% in our
county), but because they thought it prudent not to fess up.
So I can’t lay claim to
special election knowledge or predictive powers. It just seemed to me to be pretty
obvious. If you can earn a load of grief for admitting
to being for Trump, better to keep your yap shut.
Ergo: there were undeclared
Trumpers out there, and they weren’t showing up in the polling. Of course I had no idea the extent of this understatement
of Trump support---but anyone with half a brain could have told you it was
there.
And that, dear readers, is
why the polls got it wrong and I got it right.
I only wish we had put money on our predictions, or at least a bottle of
Rombauer.
