It seems that President Trump is trailing in the polls again. In other "shocking" news, it seems that only women menstruate; "green energy" is a massive scam; Trump-Russia collusion was a massive hoax; media leftists hate America; and on everything from masks to guns to lives that matter, liberals are hypocrites. Americans — especially Trump supporters — should pay little to no attention to the national polls on the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Such polls are usually not designed to inform us — as they should — but rather to form public opinion.  This is true of the polls in the so-called "battleground" states as well.  Twenty sixteen provides the valuable lesson here.

People define battleground states differently.  For the purposes of this piece, I'll define a "battleground state" as a state that was won — by either Trump or Hillary — in 2016 by less than 5 percentage points.  There were eleven such states in 2016.  Six were won by President Trump (margin of victory in the parentheses): North Carolina (3.66%), Arizona (3.55%), Florida (1.20%), Wisconsin (0.77%), Pennsylvania (0.72%), and Michigan (0.23%).  Five were won by Hillary: Colorado (4.91%), Maine (2.96%), Nevada (2.42%), Minnesota (1.52%), and New Hampshire (0.37%).

Going into the 2016 election, according to the Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average, Hillary Clinton led Donald Trump in seven out of 11 battleground states (Hillary's RCP polling average lead in parentheses): WI (6.5%), PA (2.1%), MI (3.6%), CO (3.0%), ME (5.5%), MN (6.3%), and NH (0.3%).  In other words, Donald Trump won three of the battleground states — WI, PA, and MI — where he (supposedly) trailed significantly in polls done just days prior to the election.  Additionally, whether he won the state or not, Trump outperformed the RCP polling average in seven out of 11 battleground states.  He did so by an average margin of 3.5%.

However, since the RCP average is typically only the handful of polls just prior to the election — which are often and "amazingly!" (hear my sarcasm) more accurate — it is more informative to examine the polls months prior to the election.  After all, these are the ones that are used in the nefarious attempts to shape public opinion.  Let's look at the battleground polls that were done almost exactly four years ago, in July and August of 2016.

In the July-August polls reported by RCP, Hillary had a polling average lead in all but one (AZ) of the 11 battleground states.  The numbers in parentheses are her average lead at the time: NC (2.2%), FL (1.9%), WI (6.8%), PA (6.1%), MI (6.9%), CO (8.6%), ME (only a single poll: 10%), NV (0.8%), MN (RCP reports only seven polls in 2016.  The average Hillary lead: 7.0%.), and NH (9.3%).  In the final 2016 election result, Trump outperformed every one of these polling averages except one (NV).  He did so by an average of 6.2%.

According to the RCP polling, currently, Joe Biden leads President Trump in every battleground state poll average (Biden's lead in parentheses): NC (2.0%), AZ (2.8%), FL (7.0%), WI (6.0%), PA (7.3%), MI (8.0), CO (only a single poll: 10.0%), ME (10.3%), NV (4.0%), MN (11.4%), and NH (4.3%).  Note how similar these results are to the 2016 numbers.

It is also worth noting that today's media are much more afraid of a second term for President Trump than they were of a potential first term for then-candidate Donald Trump.  This is why, along with their polling games, we had to endure years of a Trump-Russia-collusion hoax, are bombarded daily with Wuhan virus case counts — which are about as meaningless as the presidential polls — told that we must remain in some form of shutdown mode, and are nightly exposed to scenes of riots and destruction.

Democrats in 2016 thought Donald Trump was a joke and Hillary was a shoo-in.  Having seen what he's capable of accomplishing, even in the face of unprecedented opposition, Democrats in 2020 are terrified of giving Donald Trump four more years.  Thus the portrayal of near-constant chaos across America.

In other words, all in the name of getting rid of President Trump, Democrats and their like-minded allies in the media are invested in the continued suffering of Americans.  As Tucker Carlson recently put it:

Democrats understand that the unhappier Americans become, the more likely they are to win.  Unhappy people want change.  It is not complicated.  So every ominous headline about the state of the country makes it more likely that Donald Trump will lose his job.  The more that people suffer, the greater Joe Biden's advantage.  Democrats have a strong incentive, therefore, to inflict as much pain as they can, and that's what they are doing.

Instead of laying the blame where it belongs — the Chinese own the Wuhan virus; democrats own the violent, crime-ridden, riotous cities; the media and the Democrats own the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax — the media continuously point their crooked finger at President Trump and constantly blame him and his administration for virtually all that they perceive is wrong in America.  Whether true or not, the polls — whether national or state — are meant to sell the notion that most of the voting public is buying what the leftist media are selling.

And so what if the polls are wrong now?  What have the drive-by media to lose?  If Biden wins, they will have succeeded.  If Trump wins, they can tell themselves, "At least we tried."  Their polls months out from the election in 2020 look no worse than they did in 2016, and however the election turns out, the drive-bys — seemingly never undeterred by failed wrongdoing — will move on to their next evil assignment.

Last, if, like me, you're a Trump-supporter, let none of this discourage you.  In fact, let it motivate you, as it does me.  I've never been more enthusiastic about voting for Trump as president of the United States.  In 2016, my vote for Trump was more of a vote against Hillary.  That's not the case this year.  And every bogus poll, every media lie, every ignorant mask mandate (take note, corporate America), every business closed, every park closed, every school shut down, every statue torn down, every conservative canceled, every knee bowed at our National Anthem, every hateful, violent act toward our police, and all other such garbage only further motivates me to cast my ballot for Donald J. Trump!

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.