• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    From your article:

    However, the poll also found that 46 percent of overall respondents would vote for Trump in the presidential election, while 44 percent would vote for Biden when only offered the choice of these two candidates.

    You should read articles before posting them…

    You should also believe in science, and whether you agree with the polls or not, statistical analysis is a valid science.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      7 months ago

      Yep, I read it. What was the question that led to +9 for Biden versus the question that led to +2 for Trump, again? It’s two different questions to analyze statistically, and knowing which is which is pretty valid, yes.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s…

        It’s right there in what I quoted…

        However, the poll also found that 46 percent of overall respondents would vote for Trump in the presidential election, while 44 percent would vote for Biden when only offered the choice of these two candidates.

        What are you confused about?

        If the only two options are trump or Biden, more people will pick trump than Biden.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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          7 months ago

          What are you confused about?

          Not confused. I’m asking you a question to see if you know the answer. Your first try (“when only offered the choice of these two candidates”) wasn’t the answer – when other candidates are included, Biden wins by 2% among all poll respondents. Want to try again or should I tell you? What’s the question that leads to +9% and how is it different from the one you quoted?

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            What was the question that led to +9 for Biden versus the question that led to +2 for Trump, again?

            I assumed you knew that since that’s why you were linking it…

            According to a Public Opinion Strategies poll for NBC News, the Democratic incumbent is ahead of his Republican challenger by 9 points among people who voted in the 2020 general election and 2022 mid-term elections.

            So it excluded everyone younger than 22 and people who didn’t vote in both 2020 and 2022…

            Do you not understand how big of a demographic that is?

            Non presidential years almost always see a dip in voters.

            But your article doesn’t link the to the poll, so I can’t tell you if that was head to head or with other candidates.

            • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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              7 months ago

              I assumed you knew that since that’s why you were linking it…

              Obviously I knew that yes; as I already explained, that’s why I asked. Have you not seen this before, someone asking a question they know the answer to as part of a debate to see the other’s person’s response before taking the next step in the conversation?

              IDK, maybe I should change the way I talk to people on Lemmy. You seemed to be genuinely for-real confused by it and I’ve seen that before more than once (where people assume that I’m asking questions because I must not know anything about the topic).

              So it excluded everyone younger than 22 and people who didn’t vote in both 2020 and 2022…

              Do you not understand how big of a demographic that is?

              I do, yes. But I think that including it (including one factor that introduces, maybe imperfectly, an impact into the poll to account for different people having different probabilities of voting, instead of treating them all as the same) is better than treating all people as equally likely to vote, when clearly they are not. You wouldn’t agree with that?

              There’s a difference between discounting a whole demographic (we polled only whites and not blacks) and selecting particular people to poll based on criteria which make them statistically more likely to impact the election.

              No?

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                based on criteria which make them statistically more likely to impact the election.

                No?

                If it was just 2020, yeah, I could see that arguement.

                But a non presidential election is always going to have lower turnout.

                So I don’t see any worth in only counting people who voted in 2020 and 2022.

                You know a big thing my graduate level statistical analyst prof told me the first day of class?

                Anyone can find a weird sample to validate preconceived notions

                Without seeing the poll (your article doesn’t link it) it seems safe to assume Newsweek looked for the highest pro Biden result, and presented as something they intentionally checked for.

                It’s really really not uncommon.

                And to be clear, this isn’t a problem with the data or polling practices, just in how sometimes the media picks their result first then hunts for the data to rationalize it.

                • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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                  7 months ago

                  it seems safe to assume Newsweek looked for the highest pro Biden result, and presented as something they intentionally checked for.

                  Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. That’s the other reason I didn’t post the Newsweek article as a story. I’ve absolutely seen this from “the other side,” but that doesn’t mean that the answer is dueling cherry-picked samples. I only brought it up as a way of making the argument that failing to limit to only likely voters is a very significant flaw in OP’s poll.

                  To me, the factual analysis of which candidate people should be supporting based on how they’re performing is the main thing to look at, with how the polls are looking as sort of a distant tactical afterthought because it’s obviously relevant on some level to how the election is shaping up.

                  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    But it’s not a fault of the poll…

                    When you look at actual poll results, it’s not just one percentage, all the data is broken down.

                    My point was the problem is Newsweek reviewing the results, finding what agrees with them the most, and presenting that as a valid result.

                    It doesn’t mean that the poll is flawed, just that someone is intentionally misrepresenting the results.

                    You’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you think anything anyone has said in this thread means polls arent real.