I keep hearing that there is a large contingent of Trump supporters that lie to pollsters, and that’s why Trump actually has more support than the polls show.
This is apparently because they are paranoid and think that the pollster is actually part of the deep state out to get them or something, I don’t know…
But, on the other hand, if it seems as though Biden is going to do very well this November, some Biden supporters may think that there is no reason to go out to vote.
So, while it would be the same act of lying to pollsters about who you intend to vote for, it would be for the strategic reason of preventing complacency, rather than feeding into a paranoid delusion, would lying to pollsters be ethical, and if so, would it be a good idea?
Who are you hearing this from. It sounds to me like Trump supporters trying to convince themselves that they are a silent majority.
I think Clinton’s high poll numbers did get her in trouble for the reasons you mentioned. For people who didn’t like Clinton but couldn’t imagine life under Trump, the fact that Clinton was obviously going to win meant they could safely signal their displeasure by staying home, voting third party or placing a “fuck you DINOs” vote for Trump.
People have learned their lesson from 2016. No one is taking this election for granted. Given Trumps structural electoral college advantage, and penchant for dirty tricks and voter suppression, I’m not sure that even an 8 point advantage to Biden would generate complacency. On the other hand poling indicating a lead for Trump might lead to despondency, and hopelessness. Why bother voting? The country is fucked, we deserve what we get.
The Votemaster has discussed this at some length and they don’t think there is significant “silent Trumper” population. They could be wrong of course.
BTW, when discussing the polling in 2016, don’t forget the “Comey effect”. Hillary lost several points that week and most polls didn’t have time to catch that until afterwards. I am convinced you can thank Comey for what followed. In dr’erd mit ihm.
Dunno about ethics, but it seems obvious that it would not be a good idea. The whole reason why Trump supporters claim that other Trump supporters are lying to pollsters is that they want it to appear that Trump has more support than the polls actually show. None of the people making this claim actually believes that it benefits their candidate to appear to be trailing in the polls. If they did believe that, they wouldn’t be trying to explain it away by saying the candidate has a secret pool of supporters that isn’t reflected in the polling numbers.
People like voting for winners. People like donating to candidates they perceive as having a chance of winning. On the whole, the perception that a candidate is doing well benefits the candidate. Trump supporters know this just as well as everyone else does.
Tell the truth and, in that small way, help polls show as accurate a result as possible. That would be a greater service to American democracy, and also be morally correct (to the extent that’s even a realistic concept these days) as well.
I fill out those random Trump campaign surveys sometimes. My theory is that I‘m screwing with their analytics. But I always put in an email address like fucktrump@gojoe.com and I always use 864-511-0320 as the phone number. But I’m not sure if they pick up on that.