There has been a little boomlet recently of talk about how Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is more electable than former President Donald Trump.  I have heard this discussion on podcasts, I have read tweets and articles on electability, and I have heard electability discussions on talk radio.  The genesis of this discussion seems to be a poll of registered voters commissioned by the Wall Street Journal showing DeSantis leads Biden by 3 points, while Trump trails Biden by 3 points.

Ignoring the issue of registered voters rather than likely voters, those are some interesting poll results to some people.  At least some people seem to think it indicates something about Donald Trump’s electability. Those people must have short memories.

This is the same Donald Trump who polls said had no chance of winning the 2016 presidential election. The winner of the 2016 election was, of course, Donald Trump.  This is the same Donald Trump that polls said was going to be blown out in the 2020 presidential election.  That election was so tight the counting dragged on for days until Joe Biden was declared the winner 3 days after the election.

Specifically, in 2016 the final Real Clear Politics average of polls had the Trump vote 3.9 percentage points lower than his final tally.  Similarly, in 2020 the final Real Clear Politics average of polls had the Trump vote 3.6 percentage points lower than the final total.  (One is welcome to argue and maybe would be right that the 2020 vote totals are suspect, but for the sake of this discussion I am ignoring that.)  Even more specifically the last NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in 2016 had Trump trailing by 5 percentage points while their last poll in 2020 had Biden 10 percentage points behind!

So, polls have not been a reliable indicator of President Trump’s electoral strength in the past, particularly polls by the Wall Street Journal.  Why then would anyone view them as a reliable indicator of Mr. Trump’s electability this time around?  NBC is not credited with this recent poll, so maybe their polls will be more accurate, but maybe not.  Who knows?

Governor DeSantis did out-tally the polls in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial race, too. So possibly under-polling affects all Republicans or all candidates.  It does affect all candidates to a certain degree as some undecided voters make up their minds after the last polls are conducted.

I like Trump.  I like DeSantis.  Maybe one is more electable than the other.  We shall see.  Maybe either would win in 2024.  Maybe the women that Trump lost in 2020 are all in on child sexual mutilation.  Maybe they are all in on men in “woman face” taking spots women fought to get and winning awards that were intended for women.  Maybe poor working-class black, white, and Asian Americans are ok with bringing in millions of poor people to compete with them and drive down or keep down their wages.  If these hypotheticals are true, then maybe neither is electable under the current election rules and given their opponent's willingness to use the power of incumbency.  Only time will tell.  But, basing one's view on Trump v. DeSantis electability on polls does not seem a fruitful strategy.

James L. Swofford is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, Finance and Real Estate at the University of South Alabama.

Graphic credit: Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free.org