A political candidate lives in his or her own small world.

Fitting a jigsaw puzzle together, figuring out how to win an election, everything a candidate knows goes back to what he sees, hears, likes, fears, what he’s lived through – and there’s only one way he can escape that small world.

Poll numbers aren’t perfect. A lot of polls these days are phony. But a good poll can help a candidate see what other people – outside his own small world – like, fear, hope for.

Two interesting polls came out the other day.

One showed – in black and white – if voters could flip a switch and replace both Trump and Biden on the ballot, over half would flip the switch.

In the other – in an election experts tell us over and over is highly polarized – 1 in 4 voters said they could change their mind about who they’d vote for between now and November. 22% of Trump’s voters, 19% of Biden’s voters, most voters supporting Robert Kennedy, said they could change their minds.

How many will change their minds? Poll numbers won’t tell you that. Seeing into the future takes a prophet. But remember Covid. It struck, people stared at an unexpected surprise, minds changed in the blink of an eye. For the first time in twenty-eight years, an incumbent president lost.