By Dave Andrusko
You may remember the name. Robert Cahaly is chief pollster for the Trafalgar Group, a top flight firm with a track record of spot-on predictions. He was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo, the anchor of “Mornings with Maria” on FOX Business Network, at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
As was pointed out in the introduction, “Trafalgar showed Biden with a 0.7 lead in Wisconsin in 2020, the exact final margin, and was and the only pollster to correctly have President Trump winning Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan in 2016.” The Trafalgar Group has consistently been more accurate in its polling, a reputation that was enhanced greatly because they predicted Donald Trump would be elected President in 2016 against the overwhelming consensus that Hillary Clinton would win.
By far the most important conclusion was found in the headline: “We Have A Very Divided Electorate, The GOP’s Edge Is Enthusiasm.”
Cahaly tells Bartiromo
What has happened since the assassination attempt is we’ve seen a significant amount of people move to “undecided.” We’re showing a rise in “undecided” votes by 2 or 3%, and I think that I may very well migrate over to Trump. This is the polls we did between the assassination attempt and last night, and that mimics what the CBS poll said.
“Trump, I know, expanded his lead over Biden nationally after the assassination attempt,” Bartiromo says. “A new CBS poll conducted after the shooting finds that 52% of voters would support Trump in the election if it were held today. 47% of voters said they would cast their ballots for Biden. Robert, it’s still a very tight race. I would have expected a little more expansion on the Trump side. Am I wrong?”
Cahaly responds “I mean, this is a very divided electorate. They’re on two different sides. What the significant difference is, is the enthusiasm gap. In most of the battleground states, the enthusiasm for Republicans is well over 80%, and in every battleground state we’ve looked at it’s below 60% for the Democrats. And that enthusiasm gap can make a big difference in not just turnout and participation in the election, but the amount of doors knocked, the amount of phone calls made, the amount of envelopes stuffed. It’s a residual thing that will filter all the way down to the campaign in November.”
Cahaly shrewdly points out that
The Republican Party has become much more of a party driven by grassroots donations, while the Democrat Party has moved toward major donors and corporations and celebrities. When your party is that much controlled by the financing, then you have to listen to your financiers when they make a decision. That’s the freedom the Republican Party has that the Democrats just don’t. When these guys exert force, it’s going to be felt.
One other key observation from Cahaly:
That you have a national poll where Trump eclipsed 50% is just very significant, because he doesn’t need to be anywhere near that to win this election. The Republicans could be down by 2 or 3 points and still win the Electoral College, so to be ahead in national polling is just kind of unprecedented and we’re seeing the momentum. But momentum can change. We’ve seen that at the drop of a hat. This is a long race.
You can read the full interview here here.