What follows is conjecture, not evidence. But there is no way anyone can dispute it. So here goes.

The US midterms this year throw into sharp relief the essential disconnect between polling and voting, where voting is not compulsory and polling is random. The respondents to polls are not the same people who vote. It is even possible that not a single poll responder has voted. Had those who thought the country was going in the wrong direction when answering pollsters’ questions been required to register their matching vote at the same time, the result would certainly have been different.

When 75 per cent of poll respondents say America is going in the wrong direction and the votes that are cast don’t show matching inclinations to change the driver, the only explanation can be, I argue, that the majority of the voters were not the majority of the polled. That mismatch is a key factor – but not the only one.

‘Getting the vote out’ is the American mantra in elections, precisely because voting is not compulsory. Of the myriad reasons why some voters decline to vote when the crunch comes, complacency is tops, cancelling out the top motivator, fear. Complacency can be generated by sheer laziness, but also by a belief that your vote won’t make any difference.

That complacency is fed by the hubbub of expectation; the accepted wisdom was that there would be a red wave to carry Republican candidates to Washington in greater numbers than their Democrat opponents. This had become the persuasive narrative, across the political and media spectrum.

It is not hard to imagine how that would, on the one hand, motivate Democrat-leaning voters and demotivate Republicans. The other factor feeding into this mood would be the hassle involved in voting, when the sheer volume of paperwork required is demotivating. These midterms involve not just electing a lone member of your local electorate – a choice between perhaps half a dozen candidates typical of Australian elections – but a gamut of other representative positions up and down the scale of elected offices.

In midterms, the race is on for the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 or 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Also, 34 of the 50 states elect governors for four-year terms, (Vermont and New Hampshire elect governors for two-year terms). Also on the ballot are many mayors, other local public officials, and even citizen initiatives. There is a lot of voting to do. (Imagine our own senate election papers multiplied…) Presidential elections generate average voter turnout of 50 – 60 per cent, but midterms average about 40 per cent.

But which 40 per cent? Obviously not a homogeneous cohort. Arguably in this election, Democrats were motivated more by fear of loss of power than Republicans. That is my number one argument. Republicans were also motivated by fear – fear of staying on the wrong course and maintaining the policies that led the country there. But that fear was moderated, muted if you like, by the belief that so many voters will prefer Republican representatives (and many sure did, in Florida above all) that it can be left to them. Save all the hassle, whether doing the paperwork at the ballot box or via mail, it’s the same (perhaps a tad more with mail-ins…)

The upshot of my argument is that the polls weren’t necessarily wrong about a red wave; they simply sampled a cohort whose majority didn’t vote. Lucky for Biden …