00:04:23.860And unfortunately, that advice was not taken.
00:04:26.280But also I had become very critical of the Trump administration because whether or not
00:04:31.220it was the right thing to do with Iran, I knew that it would be perceived as basically
00:04:36.580a rug pull, a shifting of what people had voted for him for.
00:04:40.360And I was attempting to avert disaster.
00:04:43.140And about the time it had become apparent that the owners of Rasmussen had been talking to and forming a conglomerate, like I was part of, with other right-leaning independent pollsters and that there was potential for Republican Political Action Committee money.
00:05:03.660And I was told basically directly by these people that my criticism of Trump was endangering the business, meaning not helping them raise that money.
00:05:13.140And so not long after they told me I needed to see saw commentary when that's literally what saved our business. So at that point, I was silenced for a few months, but I was building the honest pole. So now I'm a small business owner in America and I have complete editorial freedom. And my goal is to represent the American people. And unfortunately, I look at the list of people who I know who are trying to do this.
00:05:37.680and it's really just basically me and rich barris like there are not a lot of other people
00:05:42.100and people will say well you're you're biased pollster no every pollster in the industry is
00:05:46.740biased but they all pretend they're not and what i'm trying to do is show through my commentary
00:05:52.520and through my numbers that i'm making objectively correct judgments about what americans want and
00:05:57.340they did not want this war in iran i can tell you that right now okay that's interesting so
00:06:02.240I did reach out to Mark, you guys, you should know, a long time ago to have him on the show
00:06:08.140and he couldn't come on because he was being silenced then. And so when I saw the Honest
00:06:14.560polling company start and then I reached back out again and he's like, yes, I can come on now. I can
00:06:20.240speak. And I said, well, then let's do it. And what a perfect day and time for you to be here
00:06:25.580the way it worked out because we learned of a big story today that's that's come out about
00:06:34.780let's see owen posted it but i actually have a clip on it too but there's a company that just
00:06:39.420you know just pretended they were pollsters and uh they're like we're just doing a social
00:06:44.540experiment and thought it would be fun um but before we get into that i do want to like give
00:06:51.340us the listeners and viewers some understanding of how polling works so when i see that you know
00:06:59.340scott used to always say too have you guys ever answered a poll no one's ever called me i've never
00:07:03.500answered a poll and wouldn't you lie if they called you and i'm thinking yeah i would probably
00:07:07.660never take a poll and maybe i would lie i don't know it depends what the question is so you know
00:07:14.140how do we understand polling? Like, how do you decide as a pollster who to poll? And does it
00:07:21.220change for what the poll question is? And give us like an overview of when we see polling results,
00:07:28.300what does that mean to us? Okay, so we'll start at the top level. And just to summarize, polling is
00:07:34.640hard, but it's also very important and generally effective. It ain't perfect, right? And the
00:07:41.580country is so huge and disparate and changes all the time. You would never even know if the polling
00:07:45.520is right or reality is right. So what it does is it gives us data and we use data to output data.
00:07:52.260We survey people and then we say, okay, we surveyed a bunch of people, but they're not really
00:07:56.760like exactly matching America. So let's wait them a little bit and make it match America and publish
00:08:01.660the results. And any data can be useful. And some of the data is better than others. And some bad
00:08:08.120data can be calibrated to be useful. And so generally there's no perfect data and there's
00:08:13.740no perfectly bad data. And so people are taking an aggregate of data from multiple sources and
00:08:19.020then adjusting it and making corrections and putting out data. Now, over time, a track record
00:08:24.060will show that this data is more valuable than others. And what we found now with the issues
00:08:29.680going on in the polling industry, like I said, it's hard to find those track records. It really
00:08:34.640is. And especially when things are changing as fast as they are under the Trump era, there's a
00:08:39.460lot of political realignments. So pollsters that used to be good were unable to capture MAGA.
00:08:44.120But basically when Gallup started it, they were sending humans just out into America and with
00:08:49.440a flipboard and writing down what they said about stuff. And then when landlines came around,
00:08:53.640they started calling people up with live operator polling. And that was expensive. And it was
00:09:01.180you know basically major academia and big corporations like the gallup
00:09:07.500company were doing that right but then it became easier with robo dial and that's when rasmussen
00:09:12.940came on the scene and that was obviously looked down at but it allowed them to put out a huge
00:09:17.820body of work because they were automating it making it less expensive and actually removing
00:09:21.660some bias because the the pollsters were starting to insert bias the way they asked the questions
00:09:27.100and the way they led people because it was part of the networks and part of the mainstream media.
00:09:33.620And then it's gotten even more fragmented since then. So right now there's people that are still
00:09:39.620doing live operator cell phone calls. There's still people doing landline robodials. There's
00:09:43.380still like 80 million phones out there. There's people using online polling aggregators where you
00:09:49.680can sign up and take polls for money. And there's people texting folks a link to a poll to take
00:09:55.200online. There's a whole bunch of that stuff. Rasmussen is a high volume pollster. I'll include
00:10:02.340more SMS, but at the time Rasmussen, when I was there, was doing robodial landline to a panel of
00:10:09.360a couple hundred thousand older folks and was doing online panel aggregates. And that's good
00:10:14.480enough. We were able to calibrate that. And so somebody could say, well, my data is more expensive
00:10:19.300than yours. It's like, okay, but we beat you. So, uh, so it works. And the reason you haven't
00:10:25.140gotten old and you're probably never going to get pulled is because you're on a cell phone,
00:10:29.920do not call list. You don't have a landline. You haven't signed up for one of these online panels
00:10:34.060or you haven't joined a polling company's panel. So, uh, we'll eventually build our own panel as
00:10:40.360well. Reuters, Reuters, Ipsos has one, you gov has one. Um, and if you want to take a poll,
00:10:45.600you can go out and join one of these data aggregators like metro opinions or survey usa
00:10:52.080and you will get to take political polls in the u.s but you're gonna have to answer a bunch of
00:10:56.480polls about like what kind of cheese you like if you buy i like that i love cheese
00:11:03.760so people can join so if people are like well no one pulled me and i want to put my two cents in
00:11:08.800then they can make this a reality so they can sign up to be polled join polling panel put it in
00:11:14.960google you can you can just go and literally take surveys all day and get paid a couple bucks you
00:11:21.140know um again that doesn't reflect america necessarily but if you combine it with a source
00:11:27.480like landlines where it's older folks that show up at primaries like you can get a pretty good view
00:11:32.180and then again it's like every two years really you get a chance to check your data and calibrate
00:11:38.040and uh like i said though it's getting a lot harder because everything is sort of falling apart
00:11:43.280Yeah. It sounds like it's, it's a tough industry for sure. Um, okay. Marcella, any questions thus
00:11:49.200far? Um, so I actually get called for polling and I've never been put onto any of those. And
00:11:58.240I also get texts to get answer polling questions, but I live in California, so I don't know if it's
00:12:04.480different here, but I'm like, uh, you know, um, do you ever answer? Do you know why I'm like
00:12:12.320Well, you probably haven't joined some national, like do not call registry and what a lot of
00:12:19.000these people do is that they pull out of the polling file.
00:12:22.420So if you're like a registered independent and they want Republicans, you're not going
00:12:26.100to show up and, and also there's, they buy this data from these big companies like L2.
00:12:34.440And it depends on what your voter file looks like.
00:12:37.260if you just show up in the low propensity meaning you're very unlikely to answer your phone then
00:12:43.580you're also not going to get so some of it is like the people that get pulled more are the people that
00:12:48.140are going to pick up like the indian scammers more too like there's just like but it's a big black
00:12:52.780box and it's really hard to know and some people get pulled and some people don't but polling's
00:12:56.940still good and there's ways to make sure you do get pulled and uh and if you if people are really
00:13:03.180into this you can literally go i guess like apply to the ipsos panel run by a french company and uh
00:13:11.260they're not very conservative leaning like the results that like sandbag trump approval by about
00:13:17.18010 or 15 points but when you do that they have 50 000 people they think represent america and
00:13:22.060they just ask them over and over again to take the polls so it's not really a poll it's like the
00:13:26.780world's biggest focus group and it matters how you design that like it has to be changed to reflect
00:13:32.940america as america changes and that's one of the reasons these like washington post uses them abc
00:13:38.860news uses them and they screw up a lot and that's that's why so for the big networks i mean they'll
00:13:46.540say i guess they say what company that the polling is coming from um but i don't know i i feel like
00:13:54.700we always say like scott always said follow the money who wanted the poll do people ever go to
00:14:01.100a pollster and say you know we want to pull this thing but here's the question we want you to ask
00:14:08.300or like are they ever like gut well i guess we know that they are gunning for a certain result
00:14:13.020in the polls um but as we just learned with the news that we'll show later you know that's a
00:14:20.780problem i mean just giving the wrong poll numbers doesn't solve problems although then we have also
00:14:27.820heard that, well, if you hear the polling is like, you know, this person's running away with it,
00:14:33.160then some people are like, oh, I don't need to show up and vote because they're going to win
00:14:37.100it by a landslide or they're going to lose it terribly. So I guess it really does matter. But
00:14:42.580if the person isn't being honest about the polling, I mean, would a news network, not that
00:14:48.160you need to name one if this is true, do news networks ever ask for polling data and ask it
00:14:54.060to be slanted so most of these places have somebody in-house like the new york times has
00:15:00.520new york times sienna polling and we'll bifurcate left and right so usually on the left they
00:15:08.740manipulate the numbers sometimes on purpose sometimes not it's hard to know there's
00:15:13.740everybody's like oh there needs to be transparency in the polling industry but it doesn't work like
00:15:18.060i could delete whatever data points i want and put it out there and nobody will ever know
00:15:21.880They couldn't even subpoena my files and find out whether actually I put my thumb on the
00:15:26.660or not, which is why integrity is so important.
00:15:29.720And then you have the problem with these major corporations is that there's like a board,
00:15:34.520there's advertisers, there's a managing editor, there's all these people that want and have
00:15:49.380so they don't even hate establishment republicans that bad they just don't want the tax laws changed
00:15:54.780or whatever or pharmaceutical companies held accountable or whatever right and for like i've
00:16:01.060seen examples for instance with um the new york times sienna where i think they're a good pollster
00:16:06.080and they put out a poll but i feel like they were manipulated by their managing editor to make sure
00:16:13.080that trump didn't have the good headline that he was winning in pennsylvania so what they did in
00:16:18.320the Pennsylvania poll is they sampled too many Biden 2020 voters and put out a poll
00:16:23.800that had Biden winning in Pennsylvania. But if you corrected for how many Biden voters
00:16:28.500they oversampled, it was a Trump win. So he put out a poll that had Trump winning, but
00:16:33.180the headline was Biden's winning. So that was a good poll, a bad headline. But then
00:16:37.900you have these other people. And one of the tricks they use in the industry is they're
00:16:41.040held. They're mostly only graded by their final call. Well, the final call, you could
00:16:45.620basically get a feel for who's going to win anyways the betting markets kind of tell you in the last
00:16:50.260week and so a lot of people what they'll do is they'll put out like establishment candidate
00:16:56.300like shilling slop during august september october when people are early voting when people are
00:17:02.480making up their minds and then at the end they'll be like jk italy trump's gonna win you know so
00:17:07.920i was able to see a lot of this because we were putting out daily tracking numbers
00:17:12.600And so when Kamala Harris, for instance, got selected in the summer of 2024, Reuters, Ipsos, Washington Post, all these other outfits showed this huge surge to the Democrats where they got to where they were eight or nine points further left than my polling was.
00:17:29.660Well, they finished about four points left. And so that is, in my opinion, intentional election interference. And so that happens. Now, on the right, again, the problem is lobbyists.
00:17:41.800So the American Beverage Association under the Trump administration was upset that they
00:17:47.200wanted to remove sugary beverages from SNAP.
00:17:50.080And so they went to Republican lobbyists and Republican pollsters and said, fix this for
00:17:54.200us, gave them a $2 million check and they went and polled Republicans in Republican
00:17:59.140states and came back with the results that said, well, look at that.
00:18:03.300The Republican voters don't want sugary beverages removed from SNAP and it was probably because
00:18:08.740They primed them with all these questions about libertarian values and stuff like that.
00:18:12.700Well, I just went and asked the question and completely found the opposite.
00:18:15.300It was like 75% of Republicans were like, no, that's stupid.
00:39:53.180And, and I talked for 45 minutes and I was like, you're going to lose.
00:39:58.400And if you want to not lose, you need to show that Americans, Republicans can govern America.
00:40:04.800You understand the economic plight of the younger voter.
00:40:07.260Cause you had them, he had a 60% under 40 approval rating and mostly because just doge
00:40:13.180and uh that was wild you know and of course doge went away and that also said that people haven't
00:40:18.940seen the government the swamp drained they haven't seen these government agencies reformed in any
00:40:23.740meaningful way and i know it's a big problem but you need to be perceived to be focused on these
00:40:29.660problems not you don't have to fix it i i specifically said americans don't want the golden
00:40:34.860age they want a 20-year past and that's what they will vote for and then he bombed around you know
00:40:41.420what i mean like he wasn't even listening to me you know it's like you you know he did he talked
00:40:44.940for 15 minutes about lindsey graham how great a golfer he was and how he could raise more money
00:40:50.060than every every republican oh he's so amazing and i just golfed with brett bear the other day
00:40:56.060great yeah yeah so i want to address some of the things going on in the chat which i knew would
00:41:01.260happen you guys like listen here's what i want to say so flavor you know if you're in the chat
00:41:08.220on Locals or on YouTube, you know, there's a good chance I might see something you're saying and
00:41:12.120call it out, but you guys are used to me. So Flavor wrote, stop. He has a top-notch team.
00:41:18.040This is not helping people understand what positive things he's doing. Taxpayers aren't
00:41:23.240paying for the ballroom. So Flavor, to you I say, there's three of us sitting here. I think we're
00:41:31.080all intelligent. We all have different dynamics and priorities in our lives. We all voted for Trump
00:41:37.740three times three times yeah three times okay so we are trump voters we are trump supporters
00:41:46.120so this is like a little polling thing for you right here to see like a sample of three different
00:41:52.420people and how we're feeling now not to say that trump hasn't done amazing things of course he has
00:41:58.500um you know you can't be perfect you know we understand like not everything's going to be a
00:42:03.240home run, but it's not up to us to shut our mouths so people can try and just focus on the
00:42:10.760good things he's done. There's some really big mistakes that he's making for the base of what
00:42:18.380is now the Republican party, which is really leaning America first. And, um, we're not Democrats.
00:42:26.360We're not team only. And whatever the team says we go, you know, we, we have like Shelley just
00:42:33.020sent 20 coins to say shame on you guys so it's really funny let me respond to that too yeah go
00:42:39.080ahead i've been trying to help trump because these are very predictable things based on things that
00:42:44.100i've been saying for a year and objectively i'm not a republican now i'm a pollster and i represent
00:42:50.600the american people the american people trump's agenda was more popular than trump was and so
00:42:56.520the american people wanted trump's agenda and if he is one of the things that's going to jeopardize
00:43:01.760that for the American people, I'm obviously going to say it. It's not my job to shill for this guy.
00:43:06.960You can shill for this guy if you want, if that makes you feel better, but it's my job to shill
00:43:11.260for the American people. And right now, the things that Trump are saying, like he's not getting
00:43:16.180credit for the things he did. I don't care if he did them or not. I'm saying from a public opinion,
00:43:21.020from a persuasion standpoint, he's not getting credit. And I'll give you an example. A couple
00:43:25.800months ago we asked is trump fulfilling his promises more or less than recent presidents
00:43:32.600only 33 said more 50 said less that's not good it was only i think less than 60 of republicans said
00:43:40.160more and a majority i think in the same question said a majority of republicans said his first
00:43:45.240term was better so these are his own voters saying that there's a problem okay now you might not have
00:43:51.220a problem with what he's doing. But what I'm saying is when his base has a problem, it will
00:43:55.800be bad in the midterms. And so all I'm saying is based on the current trajectory and the way that
00:44:00.960Trump has governed for the second term, it will be bad for the midterms. Can things change? Sure,
00:44:06.920maybe. Maybe the rapture happens and everybody's super happy. I don't know. But between now and
00:44:13.520November, it's very likely that he's just going to lose the House and the Senate and that will
00:44:17.680effectively kill his entire political cycle in America. I'm sorry. That's just the reality.
00:44:22.840It is the reality. And you guys, this is like the most gentle conversation too. Like this isn't even
00:44:28.160aggressive. It's so gentle. But if you're so clung on to like, you can't criticize the president,
00:44:34.160you know, take a deep breath. You know, someone just said, oh, Erica just can never accept other
00:44:39.020people's opinions. Really? I'm having an opinion that you just can't let me have. So, you know,
00:44:45.400go ahead, Marcella. I'll calm myself down. I think, um, the, the, the, the, the issue with,
00:44:52.800uh, the chatters and, you know, some of the chatters, um, the beloved, uh, is regarding,
00:45:00.780like, we do appreciate Trump. At least I do. And it's not really that I don't believe in him.
00:45:11.700It's just that I wish his messaging was better. His persuasion game was better in regards to what he's going to do, like in regards to a plan or what he would want to do for the voters, for the young people, for everybody in the United States.
00:45:30.260Because all that is the focus of the administration right now is Iran or immigration.
00:45:40.780But a lot of the things that get independents out to vote, that get the young people out to vote, is things that are economically driven.
00:45:49.980So I think that we're all in agreement, I think, but the messaging has to be stronger in order to get those voters.
00:46:00.260also like focuses yeah yeah also um where did you go rambling doug you said something like there's a
00:46:09.460lot of um light between you know trump's upsetting me to i'm voting for socialists like i i you know
00:46:17.380i'm not talking about any of us here like we would never vote socialism but the younger group will so
00:46:24.180that's what we're talking about like the under 40 they they're suffering like they're like i can't
00:46:28.900can't get a house. I can't pay my rent. I can't, you know, my job sucks. I have no money. They're
00:46:33.700going to be like, okay, well, this is, they're going to look at Trump's term as what hurt them
00:46:39.120that they couldn't get ahead. And then they're going to see like your AOC and your El Saeed and
00:46:43.940all these people like, hey, you know, we'll just, we'll just give you free rent and this and that
00:46:49.100and free grocery stores. And they're like, okay, well, let me try that. So it's not about us
00:46:53.620sitting here, you guys. It's not about who we like and who we're voting for. We're talking
00:46:57.520about the country. So try to relax a little bit. It's okay if we criticize. It's okay if we have
00:47:05.020different opinions. Would I vote for Trump again tomorrow? Yeah, I would. Do I think he's the best
00:47:10.880president we could have right now? I do. And I have affection for him. I have love for him. I
00:47:16.900have appreciation for him. I pray for him and everybody on his team. And I hope that he's
00:47:25.160guided to make the best decisions for this country and for himself and i hope he stays safe like i
00:47:29.720don't know what else i could tell you of you know the affection and love i have for this man but i
00:47:34.360think he's doing some stupid shit that's going to put us in jeopardy in the future is that okay
00:47:38.520i hope so and then i have to i have to uh focus the the audience that mark mitchell has to be
00:47:45.980independent has to be unbiased because he runs a polling company and you want to have that in a
00:47:53.520polling company so you know him uh being critical you know uh that is part of the game of him being
00:48:00.840on bias flavor like flavor just said what stupid shit like do you think he's not doing anything
00:48:06.760that's stupid come on yeah the iran thing is going to hang over his legacy yeah ways that we haven't
00:48:15.400even begun to contemplate yet and he was told many times before doing that and i actually sent
00:48:22.360polling to the white house so the problem is is that on the left they're not going to listen to
00:48:27.160the pollsters in the white house but on the right what was happening is there were a lot of pollsters
00:48:31.480putting out fake numbers that made the iran strike look popular and trump was being manipulated
00:48:36.440behind the scenes with people who were telling him you'll be a hero nobody wants iran to have nukes
00:48:41.080and it is true that very few americans are okay with iran having nukes but when you stack rank
00:48:47.560their problems it's way at the bottom right okay that's not what they think about every day when
00:48:52.600they wake up and so doing something that would focus america on that for a long period of time
00:48:58.120destroys political capital and so me being out there and criticizing trump for doing this like
00:49:03.640and and the polling that i sent only it was a straight up question like most of the questions
00:49:08.440you see were pushing people they're like hey trump's gonna get rid of the nukes and take
00:49:11.880out the ayatollah do you support or oppose that and people are gonna support it right
00:49:15.880because they're not being told at what cost well the costs were high but if you just ask the
00:49:21.000question hey like out of the blue should we strike iran or not it was 37 say yes and then they say
00:49:26.840that the trump administration is too focused on foreign policy and needs to be focused on domestic
00:49:31.400policy agenda by over two to one margin right so it was not a surprise that this is exactly what
00:49:36.760would happen and i was getting attacked because there are a ton of people on the right that think
00:49:40.680trump could do no wrong and that this is fine it'll be just like venezuela and those people were
00:49:45.160not correct. And so it's good to be objective and questioning and provide feedback and support.
00:49:53.680Does everybody have to do it? No. But the problem that the Republicans have now is that like 35%
00:49:58.380of Trump's support came from Democrats and independents. And the under 40 Trump voter,
00:50:03.940half of them would be okay voting for a socialist. They told us that. And not only that,
00:50:08.580between 60% and three quarters of them supports major socialist economic policies,
00:50:13.220like excess wealth confiscation and nationalizing industries so this is where the country's going
00:50:19.600it's just a matter of time it's like unless the republicans propose an alternative you will get
00:50:24.640socialists winning does that mean we'll be socialists probably not but they're like some
00:50:29.460of them are crazy it's probably a trojan horse from marxism and i want to prevent that and i want
00:50:34.680to prevent it by them being more effective at giving americans the mandate or the agenda that
00:50:41.880they wanted and that's just not happening right that's right so you know like mary i i get you
00:50:47.980like you know you said i don't think iran is going well but i also don't know what information he had
00:50:52.640that we didn't that compelled him to do it well you know okay but the thing is is how is that
00:50:58.980going to shake out for us in the midterms it's going to be a problem so i i agree with like
00:51:04.700you know, what a lot of you are saying, but the midterms are coming up. We're in a war that
00:51:10.780I'll just zip that part. We're in a war. And, you know, a lot of you were like, no, it's worth it.
00:51:17.160It's worth it. I ran nukes. I like, I get it. Like the fear of being nuked. I get it. Um,
00:51:23.240yeah. And Beverly, yes, we can thank Thune. That was a tongue twister for a lot of this too.
00:51:29.240But the midterms are coming, and I think President Trump thought this would get wrapped up a lot quicker than it did, maybe thinking about Venezuela and what happened there. Had this thing been like, we're going to go in, we're going to strike, and we're done in two weeks, it would have been so far in the rearview mirror, but that hasn't shaken out.
00:51:50.500And so we're still there. And now the military is upset and they're upset on their aircraft carrier. And now people are running with that story and people are dying. And every day on this show, you see the dread on our face trying to give you an Iran update because it's like, it's on, it's off, it's on, it's off, agreed, not agreed.
00:52:10.420So it's, it doesn't look good. So I just, I just don't want to end up with, um, a bunch of
00:52:17.800socialists in, you know, running the country. I'm not voting for them, but I'm just saying like,
00:52:24.100if things don't turn around quick. So that brings me to a question, Mark, how, like what percentage
00:52:30.720of people voting really sways the vote? I mean, I know it's like technically independence, but I
00:52:36.920feel like a lot of democrats are walking away because they can't handle what's happening to
00:52:42.240their party um and some very prominent democrats have said like i'm done i i'm voting republican
00:52:48.160you know whatever um but how many people really do you think at this point now will sway the election
00:52:53.420that's a hard one to answer without talking about the election integrity problems and i'm not just
00:52:58.840i'm not talking about the machines although i do think there's reasons to suspect them
00:53:02.540um you know i have polling reasons to believe that illegal aliens are voting in elections because
00:53:07.860they've told me they are and not to these numbers that we've seen like oh a couple hundred in ohio
00:53:12.520no i think lots of them and also you we even ran a poll that 2020 mail-in voters 21 of them said
00:53:22.420they committed at least one form of fraud out of a list of only four things like filling out a ballot
00:53:26.480for somebody else doing a ballot in the state and and we've continued to see this like in the
00:53:31.760democrat primaries recently with al-sayed and another one uh francesca hong they underperformed
00:53:38.800good pollsters by 15 to 20 points and one of them won and one of them didn't and it's also
00:53:44.360interesting to see that the democrats piled behind al-sayed even though they tried to take
00:53:49.040that's not something the right would do right now um but it's reasonably reasonable to believe that
00:53:55.740there were a lot of hijinks continuing to happen in places like detroit where you know they probably
00:53:59.980They have SEI people, SEIU people stuffing, mailing ballots in warehouses and stuff like