‘Submerged’ Trump voters are wreaking havoc on US election predictions

In 2016 they were shy, by 2020 they were hesitant, but a new class of hidden voters driven underground by Joe Biden’s anti-MAGA speech have up-ended the 2022 midterm election.

Projections for upcoming US elections are fatally under counting a “submerged Trump voter” driven underground by Joe Biden’s anti-MAGA speech, according to the country’s “most accurate” polling firm.

When the president stood in front of Independence Hall to warn that “MAGA Republicans” were an assault on democracy, he motivated a new class of hidden American to vote against Democrats on November 8, Trafalgar Group’s chief pollster Robert C. Cahaly told News Corp Australia.

Biden’s early September speech, delivered amid an ominous blood-red glow, up-ended the election cycle and rolled back the Democratic Party’s gains from the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion.

US President Joe Biden speaks calls Republican voters an assault on democracy, during a speech outside Independence National Historical Park. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden speaks calls Republican voters an assault on democracy, during a speech outside Independence National Historical Park. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden speaks calls Republican voters an assault on democracy, during a speech outside Independence National Historical Park. Picture: AFP

Almost immediately, a new phenomenon emerged of people hanging up on polling firms only to call back to ensure they were, in fact, legitimate, and not secret surveillance of a government plot. In six years, the “shy” voter had turned paranoid.

“This had never happened before,” Mr Cahaly said. “You have the president saying MAGA Republicans are the enemy. Facebook has been talking with the FBI. And then they start to wonder, is a poll a means to make a list of them?”

Trafalgar Group was named the “most accurate pollster” of the upset 2016 cycle of Hillary Clinton’s loss, unearthing the shy Trump voter by asking who someone thought their neighbour would vote for.

US midterm elections: Why Democrats are backing Trump candidates

They were again closest to the mark in 2020 with their predictions of the sometimes razor-thin margins of Trump’s loss. But even they won’t be able to count someone refusing to stick their heads up to be counted.

“I’m not claiming that I can find them. I’m claiming that I won’t find them,” Mr Cahaly said.

“We are convinced that we will not get them all. That every poll, even ones that try very hard, will underestimate the Republican turnout. And it’s going to be a number that no one is able to predict because they are submerged, they are underwater,” Mr Cahaly added.

A not-so-submerged Trump supporter at the “Save America rally” in Michigan in October. Picture: AFP

The aggregate polls currently show the Senate as a toss-up, and the House of Representatives as a narrow Republican win, with the generic congressional ballot giving the GOP a slight +0.4 advantage over Democrats, according to the RCP average.

The latest Trafalgar Group poll, from September 28, came in much higher at GOP +5. But none of those polls, even Trafalgar’s, count the submerged voter not sticking their heads up for another five weeks.

“They’re not coming up until Election Day, but when they do, they’re likely to vote,” Mr Cahaly said.

“When they’re that worried and that upset. When they’re not able to talk about it, they’re not able to share their frustration, or show their pride, but there’s no way. It just makes their likelihood to vote goes through the roof because the only way to scratch this itch of, ‘I have to do something about what’s going on’, is voting now.”

Former US President Donald Trump arrives for a Save America rally. Not pictured are “submerged” Trump supporters fearful to be identified. Picture: AFP

The signal of the submerged voter missing from the polls is hidden in the fine print: The breakdown of college-educated voters versus non-college-educated voters in polling.

A recent NPR/Marist poll, which has the Democrats at a +3 advantage over Republicans in its generic ballot, had 45 per cent of respondents with a college degree in its poll of the crucial Ohio Senate race between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan.

The September 12 poll had the two candidates in a dead heat. But in Ohio, only 29 per cent of people have a college degree, meaning the poll vastly over-sample educated voters traditionally more likely to vote Democrats. The Trafalgar poll of the race had Vance at +5.

The single biggest polling, and the reason college-educated voters are over represented, is “asking too many questions”.

Former US President Donald Trump arrives for a Save America. Picture: AFP

“Because you’re missing average people,” Mr Cahaly said, adding that some polls have as much as 50 per cent of respondents with a university education.

“And with many of them having postgraduate and graduate degrees,” he said. “There’s not a state in America where the general election electorate looks like that.”

So with the submerged Trump voter, Biden’s anti-MAGA rhetoric, and the unpredictable Republican turnout to be underestimated by everyone, will Biden’s “red sermon” turn the 2022 midterm elections into a “red wave”?

“Anything can happen in five weeks and so I’m not trying to make a prediction of what will happen in November,” Mr Cahaly said.

“But I will say this. If this election were next week. With the issues where they are, everything where they are, I believe the Republicans would win over 30 seats in the House and they would take the Senate by one or two.”