After Francesca Hong lost despite a big polling lead, my new @townhallcom VIP column is more on-poinththan ever!

“Here’s why I don’t trust the polls, besides my decades of experience watching politics. It’s because when a weird phone number comes up on my phone, even one that doesn’t say “Spam Risk,” I give it some major side-eye. Now, I usually have to answer unknown numbers without a spam risk alert because I get lots of calls from people not already in my contact list — the booker for Geebo and the Boner’s Morning Zoo on KDUM radio in Bumtouch, Idaho, and that sort of thing. After all, that’s my business. And I always answer with a grunt because I don’t want AI taking my voice and using it to tell Irina that I’m trapped in Nigeria and she has to send $700 to get me freed from captivity. But if there’s a slight pause, or I hear a lot of voices in the background from the boiler room in Bangladesh, I hang up. Yet, occasionally, a normal voice comes on, and if they say, “I’m from Something Something Polling,” I am out of there.
I don’t know about you, but if you’re statistically like every single one of my conservative friends, you never ever ever ever talk to pollsters.”

Ignore the Poll Dancers https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2026/08/12/ignore-the-poll-dancers-n2681021