Yes, there are hidden Trump voters

And we cannot let them take back what we've accomplished in Michigan

Take a quick look at these Michigan poll numbers from 2016.

And 2020.

In the last two presidential elections, the pollsters got my state wrong. In 2016, it was nearly a 4% error, which reaches the high end of most polls’ margin of error. In 2020, it was only 1.4%, which seems like not much. But the polls consistently showed Biden leading by about 7%, which is more than double what he won the state by. And the poll average would have been much closer had Real Clear Polling, which in 2022 helped create the mirage of a Red Wave, not included Trafalgar’s last numbers.

Trafalgar has become the Fox News of polls because Fox’s polls are actually far more reliable. It has a .7 rating from 538, making it the 273rd most reliable pollster the site tracks. But the GOP-clinging pollster made a lot of news in 2016 by being one of the only firms to predict a Trump victory. It credited its success by noting a unique weighting method that asked respondents, “Who do you think your neighbor will vote for?”

That led to a lot of discussion eight years ago about “Hidden Trump Voters,” who don’t just make polling when Donald Trump is on the ballot hard but almost useless.

You heard an echo of that argument when the Trump campaign “unskewed” a batch of swing state polls from New York Times/Siena that showed Vice President Harris bursting to the lead in the key Blue Wall states:

Trump’s pollster noted that “Eight days before the 2020 presidential election, they found President Trump trailing in Michigan by 8 points (49-41).”

If you’re unskewing, you’re losing. And this is one of the few definitive admissions from anyone near Trump that the 2020 results were, in fact, correct. But the Trump team actually has a point for once.

Polls around the key Great Lake states when Donald Trump is on the ballot are useless—or they may be even worse than useless.

My wonderful state—which, according to the Brennan Center, is blazing “a path for pro-democracy reform,” which has elected women to all of all statewide constitutional offices in two straight elections, which seized on the fairer maps voters won for ourselves that have led to a trifecta only rivaled by Tim Walz’s Minnesota for the amount of incredible progress it has racked up in less than two years—could be won by Donald Trump in 2024.

And if that happens, our trifecta is gone.

The miracles achieved in Minnesota and Michigan resulted from victories with almost impossibly small margins.

“If 330 voters had gone the other way in 2022, there would be no new majority in the Michigan House,” notes the States Project.

That’s the same States Project whose Giving Circles were the “earliest, biggest, and most crucial supporters in our state legislative races,” according to our Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

All of this is just to warm you and me up for some big news, at least big for me:

We will raise $20,024 to ensure Michigan’s Democrats hold on to our State House. By doing that, we will generate some reverse coattails to help Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win this state while sending Elissa Slotkin to the U.S. Senate and hopefully even picking up a U.S. House seat. And maybe we’ll save democracy while we are at it.

Introducing our new Giving Ciricle: Keeping Michigan.

The earlyworm society decided to focus on Michigan after we successfully met our goal of raising $20,024 for Flipping Arizona.

And this new goal couldn’t be closer to my ventricles. Seeing my state transformed since my arrival in 2009 from the platonic ideal of a gerrymandered kleptocracy where a whole city was poisoned to help pay for corporate tax cuts into something resembling a functioning democracy where Roe is state law, all kids get free lunch, and green energy fuels our future has been one of the greatest joys of my life. It’s what I want for Arizona and Pennsylvania, who can win their own trifectas this November and the rest of the nation.

But it could all be lost.

Hidden Trump Voters are real. But so are the voters who have risen up in state after state to defend our freedom to access abortion. They want a democracy that functions for the people, not the corporate crooks. They want a government that invests in families and our future, not polluters and the past. We just need to make sure they get to the polls.

That’s why we’ve launched Keeping Michigan.

I invite you to give, join, and/or spread the word. Consider this your own Giving Circle or please start your own. There’s no better way to harness the extra resources you and your loved ones may have as we fight to make sure we leave 2024 with the fewest possible regrets.