A couple articles, one in Salon and one in HuffPo which I accidently closed and now can’t find, are about women who are planning on voting for Clinton, but keep quiet about it to their family, friends and coworkers. The main reason is they’re in a hostile environment and/or they need to preserve domestic tranquility.
So how big an effect is this? More specifically, how many of these women are not telling pollsters so that the polls are skewed towards Trump? I realize that we have no way of knowing for sure, so guesses are welcome. Anyone think this effect could push borderline states (Ohio, NC, Penn, Arizona, Iowa, Texas) over to the blue?
In the GOTV door knocking we’ve been doing in rural west Michigan, we’re focusing on a state rep, but our lead question is “Can Hillary count on your vote on Nov. 8?”(this is to weed out anyone we don’t want to turn out on Nov. 8). We’ve had several canvassers come back with stories about women coming to the door, getting that question, then sheepishly look around/back into the house/pursing their lips and softly nod. These are people who are voting for Hillary despite not letting their family know they’re voting for Hillary. I know anecdotes don’t equal data, but I’ve had four canvassers come back in the past week and tell me they’ve encountered at least one person like this on the doors. I think we’ve had 7-8 stories like this come back in total, so it’s definitely a “thing.”
That’s a fascinating little tidbit!
But it makes me wonder what happens on the other side.
I’d love to hear from a GOTV door knocker who works for the Trump campaign. Because I have a gut feeling that there are plenty of secret Trump supporters. Although many of them are so secret that they won’t even dare to purse their lips and nod in public. They are educated and well aware that they must appear politically correct. But in the privacy of the voting booth … ?
Other than with my daughters I don’t discuss politics at all in my family because it enrages them and brings out their worst. They have no interest in discussion and they’re not intelligent enough to separate clickbait sites from reputable sources of information. They already send me ugly stuff about evil Democrats I used to waste time debunking but considering they believe any source of information that disagrees with their belief “leftist” I have no ammo left. I stopped discussing politics with any of them when marriage equality was a hot topic and I don’t even post on Facebook anymore because I can’t stand to see what they’re saying. My oldest friends are the same. They don’t know much but they know Hillary is a killer. Not just a killer, but a baby killer who will take everyone’s guns so they can’t protect themselves from her and her Muslim minions.
Then again nobody has asked my opinion for any polls. I’ve voted though.
They dont have a Facebook page, but they may have thousands of (silent) followers.
Because people who are embarrassed to tell anybody that they support Trump understand the reasons for their embarrassment
These may be people who honestly don’t consider themselves racist…but they would like to see immigration laws enforced. They feel a little uneasy when at work they find themselves to be the only English speaker in the room.
If they make up one-half percent, or even one percent of the white population–that’s minus 1 for Hillary and plus 1 for Trump—which makes Hillary’s 3-point lead look very,very uncertain, well within the margin of error of the polls.
[QUOTE=chappachula;19738606
They dont have a Facebook page, but they may have thousands of (silent) followers.
Because people who are embarrassed to tell anybody that they support Trump understand the reasons for their embarrassment[/quote]
They may feel embarassed to admit it to their friends and family, but if there’s that many, some of them are certain to share about it in social media. And others will join them. That in fact is what’s happening to the secret Hillary voters. I can’t find the facebook groups, but I think that’s because they’re mostly private. Or maybe it’s because I’m not a facebook member. But other people have and have written blogs and online articles about them. For example, this one which says in part:
The Huffpo article I lost the link to said that one such group she was a member of had tens of thousands of members.
I don’t doubt there are secret Trump voters, but I doubt they are in significant numbers. Certainly not half a percent. No where close. With that many, there’d be lots of blogs about them like the ones I’ve posted here and Trump supporters would be posting threads like this one.
It’s this universe right here. There’s quite a few areas around where, for example, Christian fundamentalists dominate and everyone there is assumed to be a Trump supporter. Read the article I linked to above. It’s all about women in Iowa who live in that very environment.
Secret Hillary voters don’t change things unless they are also afraid to tell pollsters they are voting for Clinton. And if they are afraid of that as well as their friends and family, they are probably afraid to actually vote too.
That’s already been covered. But it doesn’t show that women are also lying to pollsters. There is actually a difference in polling for Trump depending on whether the pollster is a real person or a machine. Real people are more likely to get told that the voter is supporting Clinton. That’s a more quantifiable effect than what you’re talking about.
I love the mail in ballot. I suspect that many, like my wife and I fill out their ballots together. We may want to discuss some of the down ticket items, consult the blue book whatever. At least for my wife and I, we are completely in agreement with the Trump Hillary decision. However, if one partner is domineering, that could possibly change the other partners vote.
I see this as a possible problem with mail in ballots. And in this election, a problem for Hillary.
Enipla, I think that’s a really interesting question. Mail-in is a good thing, but it does place the constitutional protection of a secret ballot outside the control of the state. I could envision legal action, but it would be hard to build into a case – “why didn’t you just fill out your ballot and seal the envelope in a different time/room as your husband?”. Well, as you said, the pressure could be more subtle than that – requiring that the wife do something unusual in that household, but which is routine at a conventional booth.
I don’t think there are enough secret voters for either side to effect the outcome of the election. Secret voter are more likely to be where their opinions would cause social trouble, and since this isn’t popular vote, but electoral, it makes less of a difference. Secret Clinton voters in red areas that will still go red and secret Trump voters in blue areas that will still go blue. There won’t be enough of them in swing states to turn enough voters to an unexpected outcome (Trump winning). Or so I keep telling myself. Despite there not actually being anything new or damning released on the emails, and despite baked in knowledge and partisanship, I admit the press on it still worries me a bit.
there are a lot of “secret” facebook groups comprising this exact demographic. i’m a member of one that has been in existence for less than 2 weeks, and has almost 200,000 members. the membership would probably be higher if FB allowed it, but they govern how many members can be added to a group at one time.
women (and men) have shared their stories there. many are surrounded by family, neighbors and friends with whom they cannot share their intent.
my understanding is that there are many other similar groups on FB, (and I’m sure there are some for Trump as well). I don’t know what the impact will be, but I can say that the members of the group I belong to do not lack motivation to vote and get out the vote for Hillary.