Few phrases in politics are so mocked as the old standby, “The only poll that matters is on election day.” But when a trailing politician mouths that banal truth, she is at least acknowledging that the polling looks bad. The hope that some crop of hidden or undercover voters is waiting to save the candidate may be more deserving of mockery.

It is a wish with a long pedigree. The most famous example is the one where it really was true: Harry S Truman’s surprise victory of Thomas Dewey in 1948, memorialized with that headline. Gallup’s polling had shown Dewey leading by at least 5 points and sometimes as much as 11 since the start of August. The polling was wrong, and the president was reelected. Ever since, politicians who are in a hole have hoped the polls are simply bad. But Truman’s victory forced pollsters to reassess their methods, ironing out some of the problems that led to a misreading of the 1948 election, making it less likely that history would repeat itself.

In 1969, Richard Nixon warned that there was a “Silent Majority” that was opposed to the bra burners, anti-war protestors, and rioters in the streets. Trump has appropriated the phrase, repeatedly claiming that there’s a silent majority that supports him, too. But Nixon’s phrase wasn’t really a reference to elections—it was just about public discourse that he felt was dominated by a few noisy voices. And while they may have been silent, they weren’t invisible: Polls showed Nixon trouncing George McGovern ahead of the 1972 election, as he did. That didn’t stop McGovern from claiming hidden groups of voters would propel him to an upset victory. “We may see a thorough discrediting of the public-opinion polls in this campaign just as Harry Truman discredited them in 1948,” he said on the eve of an election in which he won just 17 electoral votes.

Via Nate Silver, here’s Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, just a week before he lost by more than 18 points to President Ronald Reagan:

There's something going on in this country and the pollsters aren't getting it. Nobody who's been with me for the last few days and has seen these crowds, seen their response, seen their enthusiasm, seen the intensity of their response and how they respond to these issues, no one who's been where I've been, can help but believe that there's something happening in this country.

His speechwriter told The New York Times, “There's not a whiff of defeat because there's a conviction that something is happening that the polls aren't registering.”

Four years later, Democrat Michael Dukakis apparently hadn’t learned the lesson that crowd size means nothing. “I smell victory in the air, don't you?” he said in Kentucky. His wife and campaign manager forecast an upset. Robin Toner reported:

The crowds have been growing steadily—there were 10,000 in Sioux Falls, S.D., last week—and ever more spirited. They roar their encouragement, as if to deny the national polls showing their candidate trailing. It is hard to smell defeat amid the chanting and the cheers.

Dukakis lost by nearly eight points to George H.W. Bush.