CNN polling guru Harry Enton is one of the most popular guys on TV right now for people from both sides of the aisle.
Why? People want to know where their candidate or party stand heading into November, and Enton has the numbers.
“We're less than a month to the midterm elections, we have the latest numbers to know who's going to win, who's going to lose. We looked at thousands of data points, these are the updated stats as they stand right now,” Enton said on October 11, giving different scenarios for the midterm elections.
Mark Mitchell, onetime director of polling at Rasmussen Reports and founder of The Honest Polling Company, says polls keep our politics (relatively) civilized.
“If you didn’t have polling, then our elections would look like third-world dictatorships, basically banana republic stuff. It would be a lot more anecdotal stuff. It would be a lot more propaganda. People wouldn't know what to believe,” Mitchell says.
Polls tend to be less accurate when there’s a drastic shift in the landscape, like in 2016, he says
“It's tougher when there's election integrity issues or when there's major political realignments, like under Trump. But the last couple cycles have been getting more accurate,” Mitchell states.
What do the polls say coming into November? It's not terrific news for Republicans, but Mitchell says that could be motivation for conservatives to come out and vote, like every vote counts.
“But the generic ballot national polling says that basically, barring any kind of miracle, it's almost a mathematical certainty that Democrats pick up a majority in the House,” Mitchell says.
The Senate, he says, is a lot closer and could go either way — depending, again, on turnout.
Recent polling from Fox News and The Center Square revealed that voters view the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) unfavorable and are concerned about DSA candidates winning elected offices.
However, other polls reveal how much of Americans, especially Democrats, are viewing socialism in a positive light.
Now, The Buckley Institute, a group dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity and freedom of speech at Yale University, sampled 803 students at colleges across the country and found that 42% said they would rather live under a socialist system versus just 28% who said they preferred a capitalist one.
Alex McFarland of Truth for a New Generation says that proves they know nothing about either economic theory.
“Our nation has produced more wealth and has taken more people from peasantry to prosperity. Our nation has had more innovation, more millionaires, more technology, more achievement,” McFarland states.
The 14-point margin is the largest in the five years the question has been asked and only the third time socialism has led capitalism. McFarland is stunned.
“The young people that are enamored with socialism, they don’t know what they’re doing. Socialism is slavery, not liberation,” McFarland stays.
The survey found that students say they support free speech. But in the same survey, almost half say it’s sometimes appropriate to shut down speakers and 45% agree that physical violence can be justified to stop what they see as hate speech.
Meanwhile, 22% of students say America deserved 9/11, and students ranked the U.K., China, Cuba, Venezuela and the mythical country of “Palestine” more favorably than Israel.
“The intellectual cancer called critical race theory is breeding a nation of toddlers and adult brats pitching tantrums and demanding what they think is fair,” McFarland concludes.
