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80% of 2024 Trump voters apparently support the Iran bombing, so "MAGA is Trump" is pretty spot on. The Iran bombing, Epstein files (which I'm incredibly skeptical of) and Trump's undying love for Israel don't seem to put a dent on his popularity with MAGA.
FWIW I'm a Trump supporter and it would take quite a lot for him to lose my support. The reason is very simple: I can sense that the Left has a great deal of hostility and contempt towards, men, white people, and especially white men. And these wokies on the Left have a lot of sway over the Democratic party. Trump is anti-woke, or at least about as anti-woke as one could reasonably hope for.
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Consider the personality and lifestyle of a person who sees a poll in the mail and (1) doesn’t think it’s a scam, (2) trusts institutions, (3) wants their opinion heard by an institution, (4) has the time and interest to answer polls. (WaPo uses SSRS polling which recruits by mailers). This is selecting for (1) the least skeptical Americans, who are more likely to buy-in to propagated narratives, (2) the least independent-thinking of Americans, who trust institutions, (3) the most “authority-pleasing” dispositional types, who are interested in feeling validated by participating in a civic ritual, and (4) the people at home the most with fewer obligations, thus more likely to watch the news.
I don’t know, apparently I am the only person in the world who thinks this kind of polling must be insanely inaccurate due to the infeasibility of polling and determining the personality traits of the very people who would never answer a poll. Everyone seems to trust polling. But I strongly feel that the skeptical and distrusting American will see a poll and throw it away, and that the most “online” American will not go through the trouble of doing a poll. (I am him and he is me). I will die on this hill and if polled my opinion on the hill I will throw away the mailer.
This isn't how all modern polling is done, FYI. My understanding is that a lot of modern polling is compensated, and done online.
We know most modern polling isn't insanely inaccurate because we can track the polling from the past few presidential cycles. Plenty of major polls are off enough to matter, but in knife-fight presidential campaigns a tenth of a percent matters, and because of the Electoral College, gen-pop polling isn't necessarily helpful as to who will win the election. But once you start seeing polls that say "80% X" you generally shouldn't be thinking "well the numbers are actually flipped it's just that they are mostly polling the 20%."
What you should do is look carefully at their sampling methodology and how they phrased the question(s).
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It's not just polling. So much of social science relies on surveys with usually no verification if people are being honest. Which we know they aren't because people often answer what they feel they should be doing, or would like to be doing rather than what they are. See reported vs actual Church attendance. Not to mention so much social science is based solely on WEIRDs who are fairly atypical compared to the average person.
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