Biden Polling, Trump’s Trials, and Tuesday’s Elections Skew the Anchoring Effect

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There has been a lot of fainting couch use by Democrats since the New York Times released its poll showing Trump leading Biden in every battleground state, even though the lead is within the polls margin of error, and it is just a little over a year before the election! OMG! We’re doomed! Doomed! DOOMED! They cry.

CNN released a similar poll showing that half of the electorate would never have I ever ever ever vote for Biden this time right around, even though it is a year out of the general election.

All the pontificating talking heads on the boob tube wasted no time in declaring Biden’s candidacy dead, dead, dead, and we had all better run around in circles and scream and shout.

Then came Tuesday’s election results — which, I’ll note, no one is saying were rigged or fraudulent — that had big victories for Democrats and the Democrat side of the culture wars.

So, what gives? Is America really ageist and once again swallowing the slobberings of the Republican smear machine that Biden’s age at 81 is some how disqualifying, but I2I4’s 77 years aren’t? Or is it just thinly veiled racist misogyny or is that misogynistic racism concerning a possible Harris presidency?

Or does our old friend behavioral economics and more specifically, the anchoring effect have some insight for us?

The Anchoring Effect and Political Perceptions

The anchoring effect is the cognitive bias in which people tend to make decisions by using the most easily accessed information related to the decision. Hunh? When you think about which is more dangerous, swimming in the ocean or playing golf on a rainy day, we often will chose swimming in the ocean because we think of the latest shark attack news stories or the flesh eating viruses that now populate the tide areas — thanks fossil fuels! When getting struck by lightening, especially when waving metal rods around in the air while standing in the middle of acres of flat land is far more likely to happen.

In political terms, the anchoring effect often means, which candidate do you think of first or what qualities of the candidate do you think of first. It is largely based on what we’ve gleaned from the news coverage, as in headlines and soundbites and not our deeper understanding of the candidates.

The recent polling and Trump’s trials demonstrate how the anchoring effect is affecting the 2024 race.

The Anchor of Trump’s Trials

While liberals gleefully wiggle and fidget in their seats as we hear about I2I4’s meltdowns at his trials and we anxiously await his convictions, we don’t realize the effect that all of Trump’s free publicity has on the general public, their perceptions of the race, and their responses in polling.

Trump has four active court cases against him and several civil cases pending against him. His New York state civil case is rapidly approaching its end with daily testimony from one Trump or another, and if there isn’t testimony, there is Trump bloviating on the courthouse steps pushing the limits of the gag factor. In short, he’s getting a lot of free publicity a lot like he did in 2016.

Trump is taking a page out of hitler’s propaganda playbook

Trump is a master at Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook. In this case he is using two of the points: (1) never let a crisis go to waste and (2) always keep the masses stirred up. Even though he is in real jeopardy because of these cases, he is using them to his advantage. He knows that any publicity is good publicity, especially with the MAGA faithful and faithful adjacent.

Also, he’s using the crises of his court cases to keep the masses stirred up. MAGA is angry that he is being persecuted; liberals, that he might could just wiggle out of real accountability and conviction. The more stressed out we are, the less likely we are to think straight and the more likely we are to make emotional decisions and to believe lies.

The effect of news coverage on perceptions and recall

Contrast that with Biden who has several international crises to contend with and a wide-ranging domestic policy to implement. In other words, Biden is busy presidenting and Trump is sitting on his ass having his ass handed to him by prosecutors and judges up and down the East Coast with reporters discussing his every shift in his seat ad nauseating and the lies and threats he issues afterwards.

When asked about Trump and Biden, people realize that Trump’s name is in the news a lot more often than Biden’s. They don’t necessarily think about why because they are talking to a pollster on the phone or completing an online survey — both of which makes the polls problematic — so they aren’t taking a lot of time to contemplate their answer.

Who do you like better Trump or Biden? Trump comes to mind faster, so it must be Trump. Unfortunately, that’s the way most of our minds work. Thinking is hard, so we use the anchor effect, what is most easily recalled on a topic must be right.

Recent Head-to-Head Polls between Biden and Trump

Polling is fickle, as we’ve learned in elections past, especially when you’re relying on the legacy mainstream media to do your hyperventilating over a single poll’s results for you. The only thing that makes sense in polling is to aggregate the polls because it helps weed out the outliers and the noise that are inherent in any poll.

A year out from an election, polls are not predictive. Essentially, a lot happens in the year before an election and the minds of many people in the electorate, even if CNN.com asks them if they’ll pinky swear to never ever vote for Biden. The only take away from the aggregation of the polling about the presidential election between Biden and I2I4 is that it is close. But, um, we already knew that, right?

As our blogging pal, Tengrain, over on Mock Scissors Paper has pointed out I2I4 consistently polls at his ceiling and Biden is polling considerably under his apogee. That essential point is why MAGA Republicans keep losing.

These meaningless polling numbers represent an anchor on which people base their judgments on who is going to win one years time. When you say it like that, it sounds kinda stupid, right, but it has a very real effect on our perceptions.

The Anchoring Effect and Perceptions of Enthusiasm

Levels of Enthusiasm predict elections

One way to judge who is going to win an election is by evaluating whose base is more enthusiastic about their candidate. One way to do that is look for protests, demonstrations, rallies, and other signs of deliberate demonstrative activity by the base. Protests are easy to count because, duh, you know when they happen, right? And, if you don’t, then they were too small to really make a difference, please clap, need I say more?

Going to a demonstration, rally, or protest shows a level of commitment to an issue, cause, or candidate. It creates a sense of community and connection between the participants. And, when it is directly linked to an upcoming election, it creates a commitment to vote in that election.

The electorate connects the dots between voting and legislation

People are not idiots. They get the link between voting for a candidate and the issues at hand. It’s gerrymandering that is stopping the popular initiatives of gun reform and prochoice legislation from happening.

We haven’t had a lot of rallies, protests, or demonstrations in the past year. We’v got people agitating for Israel or Palestine, now, but that doesn’t clearly align with any candidate or party. Although, it could erode Biden’s Muslim support in a key battleground state like Michigan.

Trump’s Trials and Tuesday’s Elections: Skewing and unskewing the Enthusiasm guage

Without protests and rallies, it becomes more difficult to evaluate whose base is more energized. That’s where Tuesday’s elections and I2I4’s trials come in.

Tuesday’s elections were a pretty clear landslide for prochoice policies and legislation. The Democratic candidates who ran as prochoice won and won big. Andy Beshear won by five points in deep red Kentucky that Republican wannabe Joe Manchin will likely lose if he runs for senate again. Brandon Presley lost in Mississippi to deeply unpopular Taint Reeves because of his stand on forced birth. Youngkin watched his presidential ambitious get dashed on the jagged sharp rocky shoals of abortion rights. Ohioans weren’t buying any of the Republican abortion fantasies either. And, in perhaps some of the best news yet, Moms For Liberty (MLF is just one letter shy, but I can neither achieve or sustain, if you know what I mean) candidates lost 70% of their races!

Even though there are no longer huge prochoice rallies, there is still enormous enthusiasm and motivation around the issue. It is safe to say that it will carry on into 2024. The populace might not punish Republicans for the anti-democratic ways, but they will punish them for taking away their abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and book banning and witch burning, er, librarian and teacher harassments.

Trump’s daily doses of bluff and bluster on all of the news shows and the social medias causes us to think there is more enthusiasm for him than there really is. There is reason to believe this in the much touted New York Times poll. As reported by Rachel Maddow:

 The crosstabs indicated that 38% of Americans don’t expect the Republican frontrunner to be convicted in any of his criminal cases — and asked how they’d vote if Trump were convicted, Biden’s polling deficits turned to advantages in each of the six states.

Steve Benen in Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 11.6.23 on MaddowBlog

Trump’s trials create an illusion of support, but it will crumble if he’s convicted, if the polls are right. Big if I know, but I’ll anchor my hat on it.

We anchor our thoughts of who is more popular and therefore more likely to win by who is in the news more. Who is garnering our attention more. That’s Trump. He’s a master at manipulating the press and headlines and the press are all too willing supplicants. Jokes on them, though. Abortion and LGBTQ+ rights continue to be a huge motivator for the electorate even without rallies and protests. When push comes to shove as in standing in the voting booth getting ready to cast that ballot, we all know who will protect abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and we will vote accordingly.

Image Attribution

This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, Make a 50’s film noir-style movie poster for the movie “The Rime of the Stable Genius” showing Trump with an anchor around his neck, an albatross, a millstone, and a judge.