The forecasters have spoken, and they have said the thing that forecasters always say, which is that the future is happening, and that it is happening to you. With fewer than four weeks until the midterm elections, the models give one party a strong chance of taking the House, the other party a strong chance of keeping the Senate, and both parties a strong chance of being furious about the math either way.

I am not here to argue the numbers. The numbers are fine. The numbers are beautifully produced, color-coded, and updated more often than most marriages get updated. I am here to raise the larger question, the one nobody in the press will touch with a ten-foot pole and I will touch with a forty-foot crane: who authorized the guessing?

Because that is what a poll is. It is a guess, wearing a tie, holding a clipboard, and calling itself data. A pollster calls six hundred people, of whom forty pick up, of whom eleven have an opinion, of whom three have the opinion the pollster is listening for, and then a national newspaper announces that America has decided something. America has not decided anything. America was watching television. The phone rang. Someone said “whatever you think” because that is what you say.

"Every poll in history has been wrong at least once, which means the only poll you can trust is the one that hasn't happened yet, and even that one is a liar in waiting."

Consider the fairness of the timing. The election is on November 3. The polls began in March. That means for eight months, one side has been told it is winning and the other side has been told it is losing, and both sides have behaved accordingly — the winning side staying home, the losing side staying angry — and then on election night everyone acts shocked that the polls came true. The polls did not predict the result. The polls wrote the script, and then took a bow for the performance.

Some say polling is science. Others say polling is propaganda with a spreadsheet. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in a third position I just invented: polling is weather forecasting for people who hate the weather. Nobody demands a forecast be accurate. Nobody punishes the meteorologist. But when the forecast says rain, you buy the umbrella, and when the forecast says the other team wins, one side buys the umbrella and the other side floods.

THE POLLING INDUSTRY: FACTS THEY DIDN’T WANT PRINTED

  • Number of Americans who have ever been polled: more than the number who vote, in most years, which tells you who is really running this country
  • Margin of error: always plus or minus something, which is the only profession where being wrong is built into the job description
  • Cost of a national poll: roughly the price of one television ad, which is how I know the television ads are the honest ones — they at least admit they’re trying to convince you
  • Accuracy of exit polls: see 2004, see 2016, see every year, see the phrase “too early to call”

My proposal is simple and, I believe, constitutional: ban all polls from Labor Day until the last poll is closed. Let the guessing happen after the counting. If one side is truly ahead, they will survive three weeks of silence. If they cannot, then what we had was not a lead — it was a headline, and headlines, unlike votes, do not require a voter.

Barry Winthrop is Freedom Eagle’s Chief Electoral Fatigue Officer, a position he created, staffed, and refuses to fund.

At press time, a new poll found that a majority of Americans believe polls are misleading, a finding that arrived, as it always does, in the form of a poll.