Twice Shy: Author Explains Why Trump Voters Shunned the Pollsters

Whatever the final outcome of the election, it is clear that the pollsters got it wrong—once again wrong-footed by the “shy Trump” vote that many journalists and pundits had also dismissed.

But that shy vote came as no surprise to Daniel Allott, a journalist who left his Washington D.C. political magazine following the 2016 election and headed into America’s heartland, where he spent three years listening to the stories of Trump voters.

“What I found on the road and when traveling, people didn’t want to admit often that they were voting for Donald Trump, or they didn’t want to talk to an out-of-town reporter or a pollster and tell them that they were supporting Trump or would vote for him,” said Allott, opinion editor for The Hill.

Allot believes this is one of the main reasons behind the polling fails that for example predicted a 17 point victory in Wisconsin for Biden, instead of the actual tally that currently stands at 0.6 points.

Allott’s experiences and insights are set out in his recently published book, “On the Road in Trump’s America: A Journey Into the Heart of a Divided Nation.”

Speaking to the Epoch Times American Thought Leaders program, Allot said that Trump voters had been burned by previous experiences with reporters who parachuted in from Washington with preconceived ideas and narratives. 

Not Trusting the Media, not Trusting the Pollsters

Then, there is the derogatory narrative of the Trump voter, he says.

“In the popular depiction a Trump voter is a bigot, a racist, and somebody who’s fearful and ignorant,” said Allot. “So why would you want to tell a reporter that you support him if you suspect he’s just going to go back home and write a story about how ignorant and racist you are? That gets to the issue of the lack of trust in the media.”

After the 2016 elections, reporters headed out to the towns and counties that editors saw as epitomizing an unforeseen flip from Obama to Trump in some of the rust belt. Allot said that he was taken aback by the number of people in those places who told him that reporters got the story wrong.

President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at North Coast Air aeronautical services at Erie International Airport in Erie, Pa., on Oct. 20, 2020. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

“I heard that in Erie, Pennsylvania. I heard it in Robeson County, North Carolina, and Trempealeau County, Wisconsin,” he said. “People said, ‘Look we’re very wary of the media because they seem to come in with an agenda.’”

“You talk about these quiet Trump voters who don’t talk to pollsters,” he said. “This is why.”

More reporters need to head out in the whole country, not just parachute in for a day with a preset idea, he said.

“I know how it works—and I’ve had to do it in the past—where you basically write half your story before you get there. You know what you’re looking for. You say, ‘I want a Trump voter who regrets her vote, I want this and that, I talked to the head of the party, get a little bit of color...’ Then you go home by the end of the day—and you’re not there long enough to get the truth.”

“I think it just takes a degree of modesty and humility when approaching an interview subject or a new place, and say, ‘I’m going to spend the time to listen, to observe, before I start drawing my conclusions.’”

Trump Listened

From registered Democrat farmers to Muslims who thought Trump’s travel ban didn’t go far enough by excluding Saudi Arabia, Allott describes an array of people who voted for Trump.

But he said that the main theme from all of them was that they wanted a politician who listened to them.

“A lot of people in Middle America, a lot of people in rural areas, have felt like politicians on both sides, in both parties, have not been listening to them. They feel like often their values are mocked, their way of life is not appreciated.”

He says that sometimes reporters make wrong assumptions about how people will respond to Trump’s personality.

He describes meeting a man from Haiti around the time that Trump had disparaged the country. He asked him if the president’s remarks bothered him.

“He said, ‘Not really. It made me want to go back and improve our country.’ So I think a lot of people in the press and in Washington, D.C. especially, are more sensitive to some of the rhetoric than people are out in the real world, out in the middle of the country.”

Unique to Trump

For Allott, the apparent entrenchment of those who like and dislike Trump, as shown in the election results, comes as no surprise.

But with Trump holding onto his popularity, Allott warns against assuming that Trump voters are all fans of the Republican party.

“They would often talk about the GOP as part of this cabal and group them in with the Democrats and the media and all these other institutions that they perceived as being the enemy.”

“I think the idea that these, a lot of these Trump voters are won-over for the GOP is wrong,” says Allen, adding that many are unique to Trump.

“Alot of them were former Obama voters who felt like, ‘Look, I’m going to vote for Trump again. I like what he’s done. But after that, I’m kind of a free agent. Maybe I won’t vote again, maybe I’ll go back to the Democrats if they elect somebody, or I just won’t vote or vote third party.'”

“I think Republicans would have some work to do to retain those voters,” he said.

For the Democrats, if they want to court some of those Trump voters, “they are going to have to decide—are they going to be a moderate, a more moderate party,” he says.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to supporters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 3, 2020. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

He gives the example from his book of a farmer called Joe Walker, who he says was a registered Democrat and had always voted Democrat, including twice for Obama. “He told me in 2017, ‘I feel like where the Democrats were 30 years ago, that’s where I still am. They’ve moved away. Republicans have moved too, but now I’m standing still and here come the Republicans, and I align more with them now.’”

“A lot of people in rural America and Middle America, and even in the Rust Belt, feel that way, that they’re being left behind by the Democrats.”