Polling is an act of political resistance. It agglomerates the messy and inconvenient opinions of everyday people, kneads them into a whole, and forces them through the door into the air-conditioned echo chambers of political elites. This is not newly true, it’s just newly apparent.
Right now, the polls are an awkward mess steaming on the floor of the Trump Tower lobby, and the president is not happy about it. It’s no wonder. Donald Trump reached the threshold of 50 percent disapproval faster than any president in history. …
Trump took to Twitter on Monday morning to condemn not just these latest polls, but “any negative polls.” …
Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
Trump could choose to listen to the polls rather than trying to undermine them. He heard these voices of everyday Americans throughout the campaign and turned their insight into improbable electoral success. Now that Trump is trapped in DC most of the time, polls offer a way to stay connected. CONT.
Steve Koczela (MassINC Polling Group), CommonWealth