Surely you’ve heard people saying that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are neck and neck?
Or that Bernie Sanders would trounce Trump, meaning the voters (and superdelegates) supporting Clinton are backing the wrong horse.
These aren’t mere theories — they’re backed up with polling. So they MUST be right. Right?
Nope.
Here’s why you shouldn’t freak out about these polls and should probably totally ignore them.
1. History shows party voters come around to their nominee.
Anti-Hillary Bernie supporters. (Sarah Hina/Flickr)
Despite the fact that the delegate math isn’t on Bernie’s side, there’s a passionate #NeverHillary #StillSanders movement. Many Sanders supporters are very angry about how the race is going and how they feel the senator is being treated by the Democratic party — and saying they’ll never vote for the Democratic nominee.
We’ve been here before. Flash back to 2008, and we had something very similar. A group of Hillary supporters calling themselves PUMAs (for Party United Means Action, or else Party Unity My Ass) were enraged at how things went for Hillary and about superdelegates — and many refused to vote for Barack Obama.
There was also a group called Heroes for Hillary or Just Say No Deal. They said they refused to vote for Obama.
But, many or most of them did go on to vote for Obama (and some even don’t support Clinton this time around). Partly because Clinton herself called for unity.
Things do shift, and many voters surprise themselves when it comes down to it and they head to the polls with a stark choice in front of them.
2. The attacks haven’t really started.
Hillary Clinton has been excoriated since Bill Clinton was first running for president, and Republicans attacked her fiercely when she was a U.S. senator and when she was Secretary of State, as well as since then.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has gotten a pretty free ride. Clinton, his Democratic rival for the nomination, hasn’t gone after him too harshly or directly. Neither have the media or Donald Trump or the Republican party.
In 2004, the story and reputation of the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, a Vietnam War hero, were twisted and dismantled by an effective smear campaign that became known as the swiftboating of John Kerry. Many political experts believe that Republicans would unleash a blistering swiftboating attack on Bernie Sanders if he won, and if so, that would certainly affect his poll numbers.
So polling that shows Bernie Sanders does better against Trump than Clinton aren’t as meaningful or reliable as they might appear.
And by the way, the Democrats haven’t unleashed their attacks on Trump either, so it goes both ways. Some of those #NeverTrump Republicans are already starting to change their tune.
3. The general election hasn’t begun.
In at least four fairly recent presidential elections, the candidate running behind in June ended up winning the White House in November.
Take a look at the polls from spring 2008, showing matchups between Obama and John McCain and Clinton and John McCain. Most polls had either Democrat beating McCain, but not all did, and few showed Obama winning by as wide a margin as he ended up winning in November. Why? Because at that point the general election was only theoretical. Obama was still battling Hillary Clinton for the nomination, and Obama and McCain hadn’t debated yet or chosen their running mates. In 2016, we’re still at that point now.
4. There is no national election.
There are states, including swing states, and there’s the electoral college. There’s no popular vote for president. Just ask Al Gore, who beat George W. Bush in the overall popular vote, 50,999,897 (48.38 percent) to 50,456,002 (47.87 percent), but lost the White House. (The popular vote winner has lost the White House three other times in U.S. history.)
What’s going to matter most is what certain constituencies of voters do, and how voters in swing states vote. Will young voters turn out or stay home? How about voters of color? And women? And voters in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, which are battleground states — states that are more in play than others and have a lot of electoral votes and therefore can help win the election.
So national polls are interesting but ultimately not that meaningful.
5. Polling at this point is inaccurate.
The final nominees in both parties aren’t clear yet. The nominating conventions–which get people fired up- – aren’t happening until July. There’s still talk about a possible third party candidate (beyond the ones who are already sort of kind of running.)
We still don’t know who the VP nominees are. There’s no head-to-head race yet. The two main candidates haven’t debated each other yet. The general election ad blitz is still ahead of us.
In short, it’s just too early. There are so many factors that could push voters one way or another.
Asking you who you plan to vote for now is a little like asking you what you want to eat on a specific date six months from now. You might be totally, 100 percent, rock-solid sure you want the chicken or the fish. But maybe you like both choices pretty equally and are really torn right now, but when someone presses you on it, you say one impulsively, then come to regret your decision and want to reverse it when the time comes to sit down at the table. And maybe you’re a vegetarian so you can’t stomach either one, but will opt for one of the dishes and resign yourself to valuing the side dishes as much as you can — and to going away a little hungry.
The most dedicated, decisive voters have already made their minds up, but plenty of others are undecided and can be swayed, and polling them right now doesn’t really tell us all that much about how they’ll feel when push comes to shove.

This article was written by Holly Epstein Ojalvo and originally appeared on Kicker. Kicker explains the most important, compelling things going on in the world and empowers you to get in the know, make up your own mind, and take action. For more, check out the Kicker site, like their Facebook page, or subscribe to their email newsletter.
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