“I know it sounds silly, and it sounds oversimplified, but that's really what it comes down to,” Richard Baris, a pollster and political analyst, told American Family Radio host Jenna Ellis on Monday.
“They have the numbers to stop a lot of these flips. They do,” Baris said of the Republican Party.
Baris, who is director of Big Data Poll, was referring to voter turnout and, more specifically, how the two political parties are motivating their base with the goal of getting the most loyal voters to cast a ballot.
In this final stretch before Election Day, Baris advised, Democrats and their narrow lead can be overcome if Republicans can reach so-called independent voters.
“This is the thing people need to realize: There aren't that many true independents,” he shared.
Those true independent voters are in the single digits, he said, but most really lean right or left politically and need to be motivated to vote.
“If the base isn't excited, then their middle isn't excited,” Baris explained.
TV ads versus 'ground game'
A huge mistake Republicans are making right now, Baris advised, is spending hundreds of millions on TV campaign ads. That return on investment is tiny, he said, versus what is known as a “ground game” which is a door-to-door campaign in neighborhoods.
Baris credited Turning Point USA, the conservative student political group, for its ground game that is reaching “low propensity” voters. Those are young, registered voters who are likely to stay home, but a face-to-face conversation gets them to the polling precinct.
Baris, who refers to himself as “The People’s Pundit,” is well-known for digging into the hopes and fears of voters to understand the motivations for voting or for staying home.
One lingering problem with President Donald Trump and the national Republican Party, Baris stated, is voters are not hearing their president, and the GOP candidates, connect with them when high gas prices and grocery prices are hurting millions of American families.
“The lack of empathy towards people's personal suffering at this point, economic and otherwise, really did a lot of damage,” Baris warned.
AFN has previously reported American families have seen gas prices and grocery prices jump under Trump, when the then-incoming president promised a “Golden Age” in America.
That political disconnect with the American public is why Trump’s approval rating is currently at 36% in Baris’ own poll, he said.
“He knows I love him,” Baris said of Trump. “I love the guy as a guy, but it is what it is.”
Even though a U.S. president doesn't control the price of groceries, the White House was boasting "Americans are paying less" for dinner rolls and frozen vegetables during the 2025 Thanksgiving holiday.
President Trump has similarly bragged about his approval ratings in the past, when they were high. He told The Washington Examiner this weekend his real approval rating is close to 60%.
