With the first 2016 Presidential debate tonight, the two
virtually tied candidates will attempt to make a difference. Now the media and
political wonks have been debating, pontificating, espousing, arguing, explaining,
and blathering about why the two leading candidates are within the ‘margin of
error’ of each other. But just because the ‘analysts’, ‘spokes-persons’, and ‘experts’
have their rationales and interpretations that doesn’t mean that any of them
are correct or understand why the race is so close.
Is it possible that there are explanations that aren’t being
presented by all those in the ‘know’?
Well, let’s see if there might be any rationales that are
less dependent upon the those who are ‘there to help inform us’ about what’s
happening.
An Informed
Electorate:
The polls’ sampling of the public/voters measures their
choice in a candidate that they are willing to indicate that they will vote for
at the time of the polling. Now that tells us what their responses were, if
they made a choice; but in itself doesn’t provide a why that choice. So a ‘dead-heat’
race is caused not by who they picked (except statistically) but by the ‘why’
they are divided equally.
Now if Jefferson’s “well-informed electorate” is as
necessary to our democracy as he thought, and which I support, then might not
the current poll results reflect upon the state of the electorate’s well-informed
condition? What state of the ‘well-informed’ electorate would likely result in
tied candidates? Logically any state that has the two candidates in equivalent “informed”
states. Note: These need not be ‘well-informed’ states, just equivalent. A ‘tie’
may mean that voters are not informed at all about either candidate; that would
most likely result in a tie. But ‘not informed at all’ can’t be precisely true
because the public believes many things about each candidate; and thus they
have an informed status other than ‘not informed’. Of course, the public is a
statistical population and there will be some proportion of the public that may
be close to a state of ‘not informed at all’. These voters would thus add some
weight to an equal result when grouped with the rest of those polled.
For those voters that are ‘informed’, the salient question
is how ‘well-informed’ are they? If they are informed primarily on who is the
Democrat and who is the Republican, then all that is required for a tie is that
half the peopled polled are Democrats and half are Republicans. So is that it? Is
being ‘informed’ just having a team in the “big” game? Not sure that is what
Jefferson meant.
What about the case where voters are a little more informed
than just the candidate’s party? What if the public had a view of the ‘trustworthiness’
of each candidate? Well if the public perception was that both candidates were
equally trustworthy then the voters would either be flipping the ‘trustworthy’
coin or they then go with another factor (like Party). Again we can easily see
a tie resulting. Note: the equality of ‘trustworthiness’ doesn’t have to be
favorable, it can be very unfavorable for each candidate as it is in the
current circumstance.
So the problem with seeing a tie in the polls, is that it
may indicate that the public is well-informed about each candidate, or that
they are not well-informed about each candidate, or that the level and quality
of well-informed on the two candidates is basically equal even if it turns out
that the public is well-informed about one and not well-informed about the
other.
Let’s hope that the public will be well-informed about the
candidates; but more importantly that what they are well-informed about is
factual, substantive, and salient to why a voter should choose a candidate. A
tied situation may not be a good indication of whether the public is meeting a
necessary condition for sustaining a democracy.
Testing The Null
Hypothesis:
On the statistical side of a ‘tied’ poll, the basic
conclusion is that there is ‘no difference’ between the two conditions: Which
candidate you will vote for. So if the
public view of the candidates is that they are essentially the same, then you
expect a tie. The statistics indicate that there results, no matter how much of
a slight difference one candidate has, it is within the ‘margin of error’ so no
difference. This explanation requires
only that what the voters know about the candidates is insufficient to create a
difference.
This view of the two candidates being the ‘same’ does not
seem to have much merit since it is difficult to see the two candidates’ “performing”
and conclude that they are viewed the ‘same’.
This does raise the question about why the public doesn’t
see a difference between the two candidates in terms of their Party’s views and
ideologies, or stances on substantive issues, or campaigns’ solutions. Getting
a tie when these facets of the election are considered either means that the
population is divided equally independent of these factors, or that these
factors are not different (or not relevant) to the voters’ decisions.
The tied results are telling us something, but I don’t know
if we know what until there is more data that shows clear differences. If it’s
just that one issue wins one group and another issue wins another group, then
neither candidate/party has found a new and specific issue that is effective in
moving one group from side A to side B.
The public is divided fairly evenly in part because there
isn’t any position that makes a compelling difference to the majority of the
voters, which may well mean that in fact the public doesn’t see any difference
between the candidates in any manner that truly should matter in their choice.
It’s Not the
Election, It’s the Dream:
The ‘dead-heat’ may be an indication of no inspirational,
aspirational, or unifying message/vision engendered by the two campaigns. I don’t
doubt that there are lots of die-hard supporters for one
candidate/party/ideology or the other; but the current environment is not
demonstrating a superior vision to the public. It’s not even clear that either
campaign is offering a compelling vision that “changes voters’ minds”. If the
messages, policies, and vision of a candidate result in an even split in the
polls is that indicating that they are essentially equivalent that neither has
a better idea, answer, solution, or method for handling the nation’s problems
and issues than the other?
The public may be telling us that the two Parties are
collectively out-of-touch. They are both seen as inferior choices with no
vision that deals with the public’s issues, needs and dreams. We may well have
a tie because the public is the forgotten dimension of the election.
Them Versus Us,
Versus We:
The Democrats and Republicans are not the only groups. We
know this but it isn’t clear that it isn’t the Republicans or Democrats that
decide elections. They are already assumed to be statistically baked-in as going
with the Party’s candidate. They are a given and don’t make a difference unless
they don’t show up. There are other groups that determine the outcome of our
elections. The Independents, those unaligned to a political party, are the
major constituency that decides our elections. There are some other political
parties that make some contribution to elections, but how decisive they are
subject to the degree to which their votes can be garnered by the Democrat or
Republican sides.
The Independents are of course not anywhere near as uniform
and consistent in which Party they will vote for. There is a Republican-leaning
sub-group, a Democratic-leaning sub-group, a more truly independent non-leaning
sub-group, and a set of sub-groups that have other orientations including those
who are less politically inclined and reliable as voters. This election will be
more influenced by how successfully Independents are swayed to pick the next
President. With tied polling results the question of is there a difference
between the two candidates is seemingly indicating that regardless of the
differences that are ‘talked’ about for Trump and Clinton, they are not resulting
in the public treating them as being someone who matters in making a ‘difference’
to what the voters want in their choice for President.
Maybe the biggest factor in this election is or will be
those voters who want to ‘smash’ the current political environment. The choice
may be how to get rid of those politicians that have failed the public. Half
the voters think it’s go with a non-politician and half think it’s go with a
politician who has a lot of experience. A tie may just be a measure of how
angry voters are with the present situation and who they are choosing to blame.
Why Are We Tied?:
We are tied because there is nothing that either side is
presenting that makes a meaningful difference to the public. Flip a coin and come
down on one or the other. What coin you flipped may be biased by some factor or
other, but at the end of the day half the coins will come up heads and half
tails. Do this with a large population and sample and unless there is something
that makes a difference you are going to get a tie. If you choose the
politician/non-politician coin, you still get 50-50. If you flip the
Republican/Democrat coin you still get 50-50. Toss a man/woman coin and you get
another tie. Even when you use a Trustworth-Clinton / Trustworth-Trump coin (no
matter how low the trustworth level is) and we do not get a leader, we get a ‘dead-heat’.
