Shy Trump voters put Trump in office in 2016 and they could do it again in 2020, say pollsters Arie Kapteyn and Robert Cahaly. The both predicted a Trump victory in 2016 when everyone else was sure Clinton would win.
From Politico:
Cahaly: We live in a country where people will lie to their accountant, they'll lie to their doctor, they'll lie to their priest. And we're supposed to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with a stranger and become Honest Abe? I cannot accept that.
Now, how we measure it is a little different. We find questions that are less confrontational. We brought the "neighbor" question into the mainstream, but I got that from a man named Rod Shealy, who's since passed. I learned a lot from him doing politics in South Carolina. He always said that people are real polite, so when you need to know what they think about something that's not pleasant to talk about, ask them what their neighbors think, because they'll give you their real opinion without you judging them for it.
This year, we're asking a series of other questions that are easy and don't seem like you're going to get judged harshly for answering them. Our first goal is to minimize the social desirability effect. And you do that by giving them a great sense of anonymity. The more anonymous they think they are when giving answers, the more honest they tend to be.
It's kind of like the people who have two Twitter accounts—the one where they tweet out pictures of their pets and children, and one where they just go give everybody a fit. Well, that "troll" account is their real emotion. And the persona that runs that troll account is the one in the ballot booth. That's who I'm trying to get to.
