According to reports Exclusively available at RedState on Thursday night, The California Removal Election poll released by the Trafalgar Group on September 1 omitted a leading Republican candidate from the list of possible alternative candidates, including one who withdrew 10 days ago and supported another Candidates’ names, and contains only the names of one Democratic candidate and five Republican candidates.
We also reported that a whistleblower contacted RedState, stating that one of the candidates, Kevin Kiley, was deliberately excluded from the list of potential replacement candidates for the investigation, and that many people who answered “others” in question 2 (should replace Gavin Newsom) mentioned Kiley spontaneously, and Trafalgar Group stated that the polls they released were duplicates of the polls they did for private clients-but declined to reveal the names of private clients.
On Friday afternoon, the Trafalgar Group apologized to Kevin Keeley on Twitter, saying that it was wrong not to include him in the vote. Their poll “in the coming weeks” will include Keeley, they Will “correct things and stick to the standards you all deserve and expect.”
That’s the right approach; however, the question of the polls went far beyond Kevin Keeley’s omissions and had a wide-ranging impact on the entire recall election. Unless and until a replacement vote can be made, the vote itself should be withdrawn.
In the original article, I outlined some of the problems with the polling method (as far as I know), but wanted to expand on these ideas. In addition to what I have listed here and in the first paragraph of this article, this is a strange method. When there are more than five votes, only one Democratic choice is given to the interviewee. This is a reasonable democracy. Party respondents (48% of the sample) would choose the Democratic Party in question 2 even if they plan to vote against question 1 and oppose the recall.
Knowing this detail, the Democrat Kevin Pavrath threatened the Republicans even less, because only 22% of the interviewees on this issue support Pafrat. However, we do not know how many question 1 respondents answered question 2. As we all know, Gavin Newsom’s camp instructed supporters to vote against question 1 and leave question 2 blank, but the Trafalgar Group investigation did not have this option. If the interviewee indicated that they want to leave question 2 blank, how does the Trafalgar Group account for this in the results? Are the answers considered “undecided” or are they just a small sample size for question 2? The answer to this is of great significance.
The survey showed that Newsom’s recall rate was 8 points higher, with a margin of error of 3 points. This is much larger than the recent public opinion survey, but much smaller than the PPIC public opinion survey announced the next day. Without knowing what the Trafalgar Group considers “probable voters”, it is impossible to analyze these results and compare them with the results of other opinion polls. Californians who really want to see Gavin Newsom leave (this group is much larger than the Republicans, which account for only 24% of the registered voters in the state) already feel that their votes may become irrelevant because of voter fraud Critical; how will a poll predicting major losses affect their desire to vote hard? If this is not important, why bother?
Worse still, given that the results showed that Larry Elder was supported by 29% of respondents on Question 2-if some respondents refused to answer the question or said they left it blank, it might be Exaggeration-Newsom’s lack of enthusiasm may suddenly become very active in mobilizing against Republicans who support Donald J. Trump. A month ago, Newsom’s biggest problem was the indifference of his supporters. This poll may change all that and cancel the recall.
This is the full text of the Trafalgar Group’s apology.
#CARecall pic.twitter.com/tdBCnKKKwlB
— Trafalgar Group (@trafalgar_group) September 3, 2021
As I mentioned above, it is the right thing to admit the mistake and promise to fix it. As a California voter, I am grateful. I do disagree with the suggestion that I actually reported what the three sources told me-they all had first-hand knowledge of the investigation-I was confused, misled or tried to mislead others. I did not admit that the report was wrong due to confusion or being misled; however, in this case, the scenes from all three sources are the same, so confusion is not a problem. If I have been misled, it is those sources, one of which is Mr. Cahaly himself. Moreover, how to require pollsters who “try to mislead others” to conduct a complete investigation and transparency?
More importantly, Cahaly and Trafalgar Group don’t seem to know 5.5 million Californians Have submitted their mailed ballots, and In-person voting in the voter’s choice of bill counties begins today.
How will the “coming weeks” polls solve the problems raised by this poll that go far beyond the question of including or excluding a candidate? As Trafalgar acknowledged, the large number of candidates participating in this unique recall process makes it challenging to create simple and fast polls for ordinary voters. Therefore, if they are unable to meet the challenge and cannot immediately make an appropriate replacement vote, the correct and only course of action is to simply withdraw the vote.
