Trump Has Used the Authoritarian Playbook to Shape Our Perception of the Election

Pro-Trump forces have used fraudulent polling and betting markets to prop up his political strongman persona; we will know in a couple of days if it worked.

The political commentariat and much of the mainstream media has convinced itself that the upcoming election is razor close, with Trump slightly favored to take 5 of the 7 swing states (PA, GA, NC, AZ & NV) and thus the presidency. Perhaps this narrative is true - I really do not know. But what we do know for sure is that this quasi-official narrative has been deliberately shaped by Trump and his strategists through large-scale investments in Trump-favorable polling and what appears to be manipulated betting markets. It is even possible that these authoritarian-style information operations will be the difference maker in a close election. We’ll see.

But first let me explain why anyone would invest in polls that are knowingly false.

I am not talking about partisan campaign polling where one party or the other pays for a poll based on rosy scenarios for their candidate to show them doing well. Of course there is a political incentive for campaign-sponsored positive polls to keep donations flowing, stimulate volunteer enthusiasm, and even boost the morale of the candidate and campaign workers. Outfits that develop election prediction models based on poll results (like 538) know which companies are on campaign payrolls and either exclude or substantially discount the value of “partisan” polls. And these polls are expensive, so campaigns can only pay for them once in a while.

What I am talking about here is an entirely different kettle of fish.

In the last two months of this campaign, there has been a coordinated effort by polling operations that claim to be independent, but are really fronts for the Trump campaign, to flood the market with Trump-favorable polls. These companies are not directly aligned with campaigns, so their products are not automatically excluded by the polling aggregators like 538. If they are perceived to be low quality polls, the aggregators might allot them a low “weight” in their model. However, even if these polls are not given full weight, the substantial volume of them can move the polling averages substantially over time.

Simon Rosenberg, a hard core Democratic Party advocate, has been documenting and commenting on this trend for weeks. He previously noted this phenomenon in the 2022 mid-terms and gave it the moniker “red-wave” polling, noting that the “red-wave” predicted by many of polls did not materialize in 2022 once voters actually cast ballots. In recent weeks, Rosenberg has been doing his own poll aggregating, separating out what he called the Trumpy “red-wave” polls from more reliable independent polls. He found that national “red-wave” polls were about 3% points more favorable to Trump, and, because of the volume of polls that were released, they had moved the national 538 average for Harris down by about 1.5%. This shift during October caused the overall 538 model to flip from predicting a 55% likelihood of a Harris victory to a 55% likelihood of Trump winning. All of this took place when there was virtually nothing that happened in the campaign to lead to such a dramatic shift.

All the while, a similar trend was taking place on the Polymarket election betting platform, partly in reaction to the red-wave polling, and possibly due to manipulation by large scale investments by a few individuals. Again, during this October time period, the Polymarket betting moved from an absolute dead heat to an over 30-point Trump lead, again, when there were no major events in the campaign, no substantially economic news, and no security incidents around the world that could cause such a dramatic shakeup in the race.

The New York Times finally acknowledged the “red-wave” polling phenomenon on Thursday, but immediately discounted its impact, concluding that “these surveys have had marginal, if any, impact on polling averages” (like those published by, well of course, the estimable New York Times). But the Times differs on this point from Rosenberg because it counts far fewer polling outfits as highly partisan and it disregards how the high volume of polls cumulatively does impact the polling averages. The Times noted that “Republican-aligned” pollsters had released 37 polls in the run up to the election, but as of October 19, Rosenberg identified over 70 such polls from 31 Republican-aligned organizations. The Times admitted that one highly debunked poll had moved the 538 average by .1%, but failed to recognize that when this is done dozens of times, the overall averages are being significantly manipulated.

The reason for this concerted effort to manipulate the polling averages and election markets to show Trump winning is deeply connected to Donald Trump’s persona as an authoritarian strong man. Trump has no actual plans that will work to improve the economy, make the world safer, or address problems like crime. All of his rhetoric simply asserts that he will be able to address these issues through the strength of his personality. His followers believe this innately. They connect with Trump’s projection of strength.

But Trump’s strong-man image took a triple blow from the September 10 debate. First, Harris embarrassed Trump by controlling the debate, consistently putting him on the defensive, and making him seem like an unhinged fool. Second, the debate resulted in a surge in Harris’ polling numbers. By September 18, Harris had opened up a 4.2% popular vote lead in the 538 average, with a 64% likelihood of winning, totaling an average of 300 electoral votes. Third, scared of being humiliated again, Trump backed out from having additional debates and had to endure Harris’ taunts that he was afraid to get on stage with her again. Something had to be done to reverse this narrative and restore Trump’s alpha-male image; and thus the double edged strategy of manipulating the polling averages and bolstering pro-Trump positions in the betting markets.

This is what authoritarians do. They use propaganda and disinformation to alter the public’s perception of reality and reinforce the image of their dominance. For weeks during this election, the strategy has worked. The perception of Trump winning has continued to bolster his supporters, bring them out to rallies, and give credence in their minds to Trump’s attacks that Harris is weak, stupid, and incompetent. It is a lot harder to make these attacks stick when the polls say you are losing.

More importantly, this manipulation of the information environment has influenced the media coverage of Trump and the campaign. From what I have been reading, the media has been focused on explaining how Trump could still be winning despite the candidate’s deteriorating abilities, the deep unpopularity of virtually his entire policy program, and the gapping deficiencies of his campaign. I have seen multiple articles in the Times and Wall Street Journal projecting what foreign policy under a second Trump Administration would look like, how such an administration might be staffed, and the impact of a Trump election on the strength of the dollar. I recall seeing nary a single article of this type based on a Harris victory.

These things matter.

If the polls were showing a steady and consistent Harris lead in the national races, and even small, but again steady, leads in enough swing states to get Harris to 270 electoral votes, the focus of the media narrative may have been quite different. The focus may have been on how the Harris has been kicking Trump’s ass almost every day and every week of this campaign. There would have been coverage on how the Harris and her campaign have outclassed their competitor on virtually every aspect of campaigning - candidate performance, electricity, advertising, social media content, fundraising, get-out-the-vote operations, volunteer participation, and volume of large scale campaign events. Such coverage may have helped Americans start to envision Harris as president, with this messaging perhaps influencing how undecided voters or voters who don’t feel they know Harris well enough yet actually vote. They may also have impacted pollsters models of what the electorate will look like, and maybe showed a growing Harris lead rather than a neck-and-neck race.

Authoritarians know that perceptions are the foundation of their power. Trump has used the authoritarian playbook effectively in the last six weeks of this campaign to try to shape a reality that could possibly put him back in power. The media and political establishment’s acquiescence to this strategy may impact the outcome of the election.

My sense two days prior to the election remains, however, that Trump’s audacious gambit will fail.

While it is still possible that Trump may still eke out an electoral college win, I think it is equally possible that the polls, election markets, and political prognosticators have missed an entirely different narrative for this election. We may actually see a robust, diverse coalition of people coming together to protect the America they know and love, address constructively the problems that continue to plague us, and reject the division and hatefulness that animates Trump and MAGA. The Iowa poll that dropped last night, if it is accurate, might be a harbinger of this alternative narrative, a narrative that will produce a still narrow, but decisive Harris win.

Maybe, just maybe, we will prove that the authoritarian playbook just won’t work in these United States.