Donald Trump

A group of Democratic pollsters released a "lessons-learned" report on April 13, attempting to explain why they blew the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which they predicted a blow-out for Biden, and Democrats taking control of the Senate as well as widening their lead in the House.

COVID-19 is among their excuses. “Perhaps voters with more progressive attitudes on COVID-19 were not only more likely to wear masks and stay home, but also more likely to answer poll calls while conservatives were harder to reach.”

And related to the COVID-19 hypothesis is the idea that some voters opted out of polls due to a lack of social trust.

“Trump may have helped turn this into a problem for pollsters by attracting distrustful voters and making his most ardent supporters even more distrustful of other people, of the media and perhaps even polling itself. That, in turn, could have made his supporters less likely to answer polls.”

The Democratic pollsters hope for better forcecasts ahead and pray each evening that Trump’s political days are over.

Noting that they did much worse in 2020 than in previous years, the report suggests the presence of Trump screwed everything up for them. “We should be careful not to overcorrect for an error that may be geared to one man, who will, hopefully, never be on the ballot again.”

The pollsters ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group and Normington Petts should be careful what they wish for.

Trump looks like he’s rarin’ to go.

Shades of Kim Jong-un... The Business Roundtable released a survey of its membership on April 12, showing that 98 percent of its CEOs fear that Joe Biden’s proposed hike in the statutory federal tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent would have a “moderate” or “very” significant adverse affect on their business.

Had the North Korean leader been running the Business Roundtable poll, he could have hit the 100 percent tax disapproval rate.

C’mon Business Roundtable, the corporate rate was 35 percent before Donald Trump gifted Corporate America with his massive 2017 cut.

Of course, few corporations pay the statutory corporate rate, taking advantage of tax-avoiding deductions, exemptions, offshoring and other schemes.

The Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy released a report on April 2, showing that 55 profitable American companies stiffed Uncle Sam on taxes in 2020.

That list includes Charter Communications, which earned $3.7B in US pre-tax 2020 profit, FedEx ($2.1B profit), Salesforce ($2.6B), Consolidated Edison ($1.2B), Nike ($2.9B), Textron ($278M) and Interpublic Group ($284M).

Is it too much to ask for these companies to pay their fair share of tax? While the Business Roundtable may beg to differ, Team Biden and the American public think so.