Polls Shmolls! Democrats Keep on Winning | Opinion

That large noise you heard late Tuesday night was a collective sigh of relief from the White House—and Democrats across the nation—as election results from Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky came in.

The results—particularly in Virginia and Ohio, which will have an outsized role in determining not only who wins the White House in 2024 but also control of the Senate—affirmed that the coalition of voters who came together to defeat former President Donald Trump and MAGA extremism in nearly every election since 2016 and who delivered the White House to President Biden, is still holding strong heading into next year's election.

The results could not come at a more opportune moment for Biden and Democrats, as a series of bad polls over recent weeks—capped off by this weekend's New York Times/Siena poll which showed Biden losing to the twice-impeached and criminally indicted Donald Trump in five out of the six key battleground states—had led to a palpable chorus of Democratic freakout and bedwetting.

And here is the best news for Democrats: This week's election results are not an outliner. In fact, they have been the norm for the last few years, particularly since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

There have been 30 special elections this year, and in those races, Democrats have outperformed each seat's base partisanship score by an average of 11 points. Last month saw Democrats overperform—and win races—in two states the Trump team has made clear they view as critical to their path to victory: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. And Democrats this year have also won mayoral races in Jacksonville, Florida, and Colorado Springs, Colorado, two Republican-leaning cities, and they won a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat with 56 percent of the vote.

In other words, despite bad poll numbers for Biden, Democrats keep winning. And decisively.

So, what is the disconnect between the New York Times poll (and many other recent polls) and the election results?

Probably lots of things.

But mostly, polls, like the New York Times' and others, at this point in the 2024 contest are an abstract proxy for a referendum on Biden and his term. But in reality, when voters hit the ballot box, as we saw on Tuesday, most voters, when push comes to shove, see elections as a choice between two candidates, not a referendum.

And that choice has benefited Democrats in election and after election since 2016.

Also, polls are a snapshot in time, not a prediction of a future outcome. Put another way, Trump-vs.-Biden polling this far out from the election is more likely a snapshot of voter discontent with an economy that many feel still doesn't work for them and two wars abroad that have dominated the news cycle as of late, not a prediction of what will happen a year from now.

"Don't judge me against the Almighty; judge me against the alternative," Biden is famous for saying. Now he—and Democrats—must use every day for the next year to turn that saying into action.

They must make the 2024 race a choice, not a referendum. And if they do, they should see results similar to what we saw on Tuesday. Regardless of what today's polls show.

Let's be clear, Democrats should take nothing for granted. 2024 will be a close election. But freaking out over polling a year out is not only pointless, it is counterproductive and a waste of time. Because the best predictor of voting behavior is voting behavior.

And those in full panic mode over the recent polling should remember: Polls don't vote; people do. And so far, in nearly every election since 2016, people have voted to reject Donald Trump and the extremism of the Republican Party.

Doug Gordon is a Democratic strategist and co-founder of UpShift Strategies who has worked on numerous federal, state, and local campaigns and on Capitol Hill. He is on X/Twitter at @dgordon52.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.