Between now and Election Day, the voters will be inundated with polls attempting to forecast the election outcome. That answer intrigues all of us.
As Alexander Hamilton once said, “Every vital question of state will be merged in the question, ‘Who will be the next president?’”
But relying on the polls as accurate barometers of public opinion has been questioned ever since Donald Trump emerged as a political force. In 2016, the polls wildly missed the mark, as the vast preponderance of them gave Hillary Clinton a strong lead.
Four years later, Joe Biden’s polling advantages overstated his actual results. After the 2020 election, there was talk of a “hidden Trump vote.” And in 2022, the polls missed again, pointing to a Republican red wave that failed to materialize.
Sometimes a better predictor of our political futures is found in pop culture.
In 1940, Woody Guthrie composed a blistering rebuttal to Irving Berlin’s classic tune, “God Bless America.” In “This Land Is Your Land,” Guthrie sang of the dispossessed and the need for equity, powerful reminders of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s continued appeal. That year, Roosevelt won a comfortable victory.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan coasted to a landslide victory. While the polls projected a comfortable Reagan win, the signs were already present in the zeitgeist. Two of the most popular television shows that year were "Family Ties” and “The Cosby Show.” Family........