'I think Biden will defeat Trump convincingly': A veteran Michigan pollster on what to expect in 2020
Top Michigan pollster Bernie Porn talks about lessons learned from 2016 and why this cycle is different.
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Here’s where we stand with 14 days to Election Day:
National poll averages: Biden +10.7 (via 538) (+0.1 from last week)
Florida: Biden +3.8 (-0.8)
Pennsylvania: Biden +6.5 (-0.7)
Michigan: Biden +7.9 (-0.1)
Wisconsin: Biden +7.3 (-0.4)
Arizona: Biden +3.9 (no change)
FUN FACT: Kansas (Trump +6.3 in 538) is still closer right now than PA/MI/WI.
And now, a bit more about Michigan.
In the last week of the 2016 campaign, I wrote a pretty banal story that resulted in a lot of Democratic “bedwetting” and complaints of overreaction in my inbox. The Democratic “blue wall” was crumbling, and the polls were beginning to reflect it.
This particular story happened to be about Michigan—which, as we all know, swung with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to hand President Donald Trump an Electoral College victory.
One polling firm that saw a rapidly tightening race was EPIC-MRA, which is based in Lansing. Its final poll, conducted a week before the election, found Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by just four points, a seven-point shift over the last month. Bernie Porn, the firm’s president, says that if the firm had done another poll even closer to Election Day, it would’ve come close to nailing the final result.
Porn has been involved in polling and politics for more than four decades. In this week’s Margin of Error, I spoke with Porn about the lessons learned from 2016, where Michigan fits in the 2020 puzzle and beyond, and, yes, his unusual last name. The conversation is lightly edited for length and clarity.
First, a bit of background: How did you get into the field of polling?
In college, as president of the dorm and also a resident advisor, I recruited volunteers for a professor who was a candidate for state representative, and I worked with a friend who was a student assistant for another professor who did polling. We did polling for a candidate for mayor of Grand Rapids as well as the professor who ran for state representative, with that candidate winning.
After graduating and getting incredibly tired of selling shoes, I did what my father bugged me to do and called John Otterbacher, who was the professor who got elected state representative. I got a job working for him as an intern and when [Gerald] Ford's congressional district opened up, when he became Vice President, Otterbacher considered running for Congress. He decided not to run, but I went to work for Dick Vander Veen, who was the Dem candidate for Congress. I got involved in the polling operation for the congressional campaign and learned a lot about it from a Boston based consulting firm who managed the campaign (Martilla and Associates), winning the congressional seat that was held by Gerald Ford during Watergate.
I then worked on another congressional campaign in the Saginaw area for Bob Traxler, who also won his race. I then got a job on the Speaker's staff of the Michigan House and worked there for almost 20 years. During the 1980s, we hired Stan Greenberg to do polling and focus group research for House Dems. [I] learned a lot from him and in 1985 founded EPIC-MRA with two other friends and staffers, left the State House in 1992, and have been doing polling and consulting ever since. In 1990, Greenberg worked as Bill Clinton's pollster and over the years worked for Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela, and many other world leaders.
What are your go-to resources for polling- and data-related information?
I follow FiveThirtyEight a lot, as well as Real Clear Politics, but I also spend a fair amount of time following Stan Greenberg's work at Democracy Corps.
What is your read of the landscape in Michigan, with just days to go to Election Day?
Biden is well positioned to win Michigan, and while I think the race will probably tighten up somewhat, I think Biden will defeat Trump convincingly. Peters will also win, but the US Senate race will be tighter than the presidential race. Biden can probably win by about 7 or 8 points, with Peters winning by about 5 points, and the Dem base may potentially be strong enough to not only help competitive incumbent Dems for Congress win, but also to pick up one or possibly two other congressional seats. I also think Dems have a good chance of winning control of the State House, even with a redistricting plan that is very favorable to the GOP. When working in the legislature, I worked on congressional and state legislative redistricting after the 1980 and 1990 census. I am listed as one of the authors of the 1980 congressional district plan as approved by a federal court.
Michigan has one of the more intriguing Senate races this cycle. What is your read on why John James has been so competitive in a challenging landscape for Republicans?
James has a very engaging and friendly personality, while Peters often comes off as more professorial and intense. However, the negative ads against James have dropped his favorable rating and increased his unfavorable ratings so that his chances of catching Peters have eroded significantly. If James had been more willing to do interviews with media outlets other than Fox News over the past several months, and if he had not said that he supported Trump 2,000 percent, the race might be much closer.
What's different in 2020 than 2016? Specifically, what do you see differently in how voters view President Trump and the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, vs. their attitude toward Hillary Clinton?
Joe Biden isn't Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is probably the only GOP candidate that Hillary Clinton could have defeated. Her negatives were almost as high as Trump's. Clinton led Trump by 11 points until her health scare on 9/11, and in our poll that followed, her lead dropped to 3 points, which told me she could be very vulnerable. She was back up to an 11-point lead during the debates, but she dropped to a 7-point lead after the WikiLeaks stories, and then after the Comey letter, her lead dropped to 4 points with a week to go. We expected a very close election given the trendlines, and said in interviews that her chances could depend on Black turnout, which it did. Wish we could have done one more poll right before the election. As you noted, Biden has a 51 percent favorable rating, which is only 4 points lower than Gov. [Gretchen] Whitmer at 55 percent. Trump has a 55 percent negative favorable rating and a negative job rating of 57 percent. In previous polls, his handling of the coronavirus was in the 60s negative.
At this point, do you view Michigan as a battleground state?
Yes, but not as much of a top tier battleground state as several others. It is worth noting that Trump has pulled several million dollars in ads off the air in Michigan. Also, Trump is spending time and resources defending himself in states that were considered safe red, including Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina.
In 2016, what do you think were the factors that pushed the vote over the edge for Trump?
According to our analysis of our voter database, 620,000 voters who participated in the 2012 presidential election did not vote in 2016, including nearly 58,000 voters in Detroit. Most of those voters who did not turn out were located in SE Michigan. It should also be noted that there were 680,000 new voters in 2016 who did not vote in 2012, with most of them located in outstate regions and rural areas. A lack of turnout, especially among African American voters, is the primary reason for Clinton's loss, and in the last week, Obama, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and other Dems focusing on Black turnout were unable to persuade the numbers needed.
In 1990, with one week left before the election, then Gov. Jim Blanchard had an 8-point lead over Sen. John Engler. We conducted another poll the weekend before the election and it showed that the race was dead even. Blanchard ended up losing by 17,000 votes. This election, even though I expect Biden to win Michigan by a healthy margin, we are conducting a poll near the election for our media clients.
In 2020, a lot of news—the Supreme Court nomination battle, Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis, and, in Michigan, news of the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—hasn't seemed to move the race. Have you seen, or do you expect, any effect from these events—and is there anything you think can swing the race's status a significant amount?
The Supreme Court nomination could have an impact on the election that may help Biden because of the manner in which Senate GOP and Trump are forcing the appointment through, which could have a very great impact on the [Affordable Care Act] and abortion. The plot to kidnap Whitmer could also have an impact if Trump continues to attack Whitmer. Trump is drowning underwater with negative poll numbers and he somehow thinks it's a good idea to go after Whitmer, who is as positive in her numbers as he is negative. Finally, Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis will not help him. According to our most recent poll, 61 percent of all respondents are not sympathetic at all towards Trump because of his behavior in not wearing a mask, not social distancing, and having crowds that are often transmitting the virus. They think he brought it on himself, including 88 percent of Dems, 65 percent of Independents, and even 31 percent of GOP voters. Also, 63 percent of all respondents favors a national mask policy requirement, including 95 percent of Dems, 58 percent of Independents, and 30 percent of Republicans (37 percent of GOP women).
What adjustments have you made this cycle, and what makes you more confident in your polling this time around?
We were confident in our polling in 2016. After we released our results and said given the trendline, it would be a close election, Trump and Hillary Clinton came to Michigan, as well as Obama, Bill Clinton, Jackson and other Clinton representatives. We are using the 2016 election as more of a template for stratification, with minor adjustments based on voter enthusiasm.
One adjustment I've noticed you haven't made that a lot of other pollsters have is weighting for education. Did you consider that? Why do you think it isn't necessary?
If we had an imbalance based on education, we would probably consider weighting for education, but our educational level has consistently been about 42 to 46 percent college educated, with majorities of 54 to 58 percent having less than a college education. Our most recent poll has 55 percent non college educated, with 45 percent college educated.
On that note, there are a lot of people still obsessed with the notion that there could be "shy Trump voters" lurking outside of the polls. Do you give that any credence?
FiveThirtyEight did a study on that topic and found little evidence that Trump voters are not willing to tell pollsters who they are voting for, and I don't see much of an indication that Trump voters are bashful about proudly proclaiming who they are voting for, just as 28 to 32 percent of Trump voters and Republicans not only don't wear masks, but they are brash enough to think it is appropriate to openly criticize others who DO wear masks, asking why they do so.
Regardless of what happens in 2020, where do you see the future of Michigan electorally? Some debate has started over whether its working-class population will be less friendly to a non-Biden Democratic nominee in the future and that Democrats will shift focus to the Sun Belt and spots like Arizona. Others see it swinging back to Democrats in a non-Trump Republican world.
In a non-Trump Republican world, the Republican Party will probably take a significant period of time to recover. Trump is not the kind of guy who is going to be like old soldiers and "just fade away." I expect that Republicans will have internal wars that will take a long time to resolve. Given that Dems did so well statewide in 2018, assuming Biden wins convincingly, I expect Dems will continue to perform well, especially if the new commission on redistricting can develop congressional and state legislative districts that are fair to both parties. Neither party controls the pen now, and there will be tremendous pressure to adopt fair redistricting plans which should provide Dems with a better chance of winning control of the congressional and legislative bodies than they have currently, especially if women are as motivated to vote as they are now.
Outside of your work in polling, what do you do for fun?
Not much with COVID-19, but when things become normal again and my family and I don't have to act like hermits in our home, I may get back to singing karaoke, shooting pool and doing things like playing ping pong. However, given my profession, I always seem to end up talking politics.
Final question: Many observers have noted that you have perhaps the most unusual last name in the polling world. What's the most memorable reaction you've gotten to telling someone your last name?
There used to be a website called awkwardnames.com in which I was a prominently featured name. I couldn't find it when I recently looked for it, but probably the funniest thing that ever happened to me is when my wife and I, and another couple, went to a campaign fundraiser in 1982. After the fundraiser we went to have dinner and the candidate and his group showed up at the same restaurant. The special guest for the fundraiser was Ed Asner, who as you probably know was a co-star on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” [Editor’s note: Even though your newsletter writer was not alive when it aired, he did know this!] He is still active in shows like SVU. He got to the restaurant a few minutes late and instead of sitting with Congressman Howard Wolpe and his group, he asked if he could join us for dinner. When we introduced ourselves, Ed Asner didn't believe "Porn" was my last name, so he asked me to show him my driver's license to prove it—which I did. That was a source of fun discussions for the two hours or so that we had the thrill of chatting with Ed Asner.
When my nephew and godson with the same last name was applying for a job with a makeup and special effects company in L.A., he got an interview because the company owner wanted to meet the guy with such a last name. He got the job and has been doing makeup and special effects for decades. My nephew Erik Porn has worked on a great many movies and TV series, and recently won an Oscar with his group for making Christian Bale look so much like Dick Cheney in the movie “Vice.”
Anything else I didn't ask that you wanted to mention?
While we are best known for the polls we do during elections for our media clients, including the Free Press and three TV stations, most of our work is conducting surveys for school districts, community colleges, local governments and transit authorities, helping them develop bond or millage proposals. Finding out how much communities are willing to pay in higher taxes can often be much more difficult than testing which candidates for public office voters are more willing to support. We have conducted surveys for more than 150 school districts and when it involves a tax related election, we have been successful in nearly 90 percent of them. It is a great source of enjoyment to drive around Michigan and see school buildings, auditoriums, or sports facilities that were either renovated or built new because of ballot proposals that we helped to pass.
Thanks for reading Margin of Error. If you have any tips, comments, or insights about polling, email me at bplogiurato@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter @BrettLoGiurato.
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