One of my favorite Bible verses is a warning from Christ concerning the latter days. It’s found in Matthew 24:4 and says, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” Saying that in the last days, perilous times shall come, the Apostle Paul echoes such a warning in 2 Timothy 3:13, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Deception is key to taking well-intended people off the track of what is right and good. To combat deception, we need discernment, which is found in the Holy Scriptures and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need a lot of wisdom to discern these days. Those wishing to deceive often try to co-opt your support through peer pressure.
Have you noticed the way the media tries to ply your opinion? For example, various media will be conducting their own polls to show you what America is thinking. Take heed that they do not deceive you. ABC, MSNBC, CBS, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times—all of these and more will be conducting their “polls” to show you how America will vote on election day. Take them with a grain of salt because just as these outlets’ stories are biased and passed off as unbiased news, so too, are their polls. Their sampling practices are weighted toward their bias. I know this from my days in politics. For example, a recent New York Times poll showing former Vice President Joe Biden with a 12 point lead over President Donald Trump, sampled 57% Democrats to 43% Republicans. Of course, Biden would lead.
When running a large political campaign, polling data is imperative. Accurate polling data can mean the difference between winning and losing in a tight race. It can give you trends, messaging guidance, issues, demographics and a whole lot more. But it has to be accurate or your entire campaign will be off. So politicians do not use media polls. They hire a polling company to conduct an accurate poll based on a scientifically drawn, unbiased sampling of the voters. The media, admittedly weighs their samplings toward a Democratic bias because they draw more voters from the Democratic voting base. Also, online polls are suspect because it is difficult to verify who is actually giving the information and how many times they are giving it.
Constitution.com reported in August 2016: ”Media polls are driven by the desire to achieve a certain outcome. That is why you think Hillary is leading Trump by 10 points…The media is jerking our chain. DO NOT believe them. The only polls that can be believed are internal polls that are rarely made public.” Rasmussen Reports was the only public pollster that I am aware of who got the 2016 election correct. For nearly 20 years, Rasmussen has tracked daily presidential approval. For June 24, 2020, Trump’s approval rating was 47% compared with the previous president’s 44% on the same day in 2012. Rasmussen is considered an outlier by the media pollsters. But we know what they do, don’t we?
