VOA常速英语:Donald Trump’s ’Hidden’ Support Could Turn Election - Or Not(翻译)

Sondra Dull volunteers for the Trump campaign in Western Pennsylvania.She says when pollsters call, Trump voters don’t answer.

"They’re just very quiet about it.It’s, like, the silent majority.They’re just not going to talk about it."

Dull says there are enough silent Trump voters to win the election.Many Trump supporters do not trust polls, pollsters and all kinds of institutions.But there could be another reason why they don’t identify themselves:To some, Trump voters have a bad reputation.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton put some of his supportersin what she called a "basket of deplorables."

"They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it."

Many people don’t want to be put in that basket.So if someone asks who they are voting for, they may keep quiet about it,says Dartmouth College political science professor Joe Bafumi, via Skype.

"They’ll go ahead and vote for that candidate in the privacy of a polling booth.But they won’t admit to voting for that candidate to somebody who’s calling them for a poll."

Something like that happened in the 1980s.Tom Bradley was the first African American to run for governor of California.He had a big lead in the polls, but lost the election.

"Many people argue it was because there were a lot of white Democratswho said that they were going to vote Democratic.’Cause they normally would vote for Democratic candidates.When it came time to go to the polls, they didn’t vote for Bradley because he was black.They voted for the white candidate instead."

During the primaries, Trump did better in online polls than in telephone pollswhere respondents talk to a live person,says the Pew Research Center’s Courtney Kennedy via Skype.

“People may have been suppressed in their intention to vote for Donald Trumpduring the primary season of this contest.There really is not strong support to suggest that that’s going on in the general election, however.”

The gap between live and online polls has narrowed since the primaries.And a recent Pew survey asked people how comfortable they were discussing who they were voting for.

“Really, we didn’t find any difference in terms of supporters,for which candidates saying that they would prefer other people not know about that support.”

So experts say that it’s unlikely the supposedly shy Trump voters would have much impact on the election.But if the race continues to tighten, they say, even the small effect could be significant.