• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Do you remember 2016? Polls were saying Clinton would beat Trump by a significant margin.

      If you’re approaching this logically, you’d notice the trend on data being unreliable when Trump is on the ballot.

      It’s mostly attributed to inaccuracies in putting appropriate weight on likely voters vs. unlikely voters. People considered unlikely to vote by pollsters went out and voted, and they voted for Trump.

      Measuring racism is also something that polling is bad at. People simply don’t like to admit to being racist. Is this related to the reason why polling on Trump is inaccurate? We don’t know because there’s no data on this. Some things polling just fails at. Can’t do much when people won’t provide you with data that may be relevant.

      We do know that Trump’s primary numbers were lower than polling indicated it would be. Does that mean his numbers in the general will be lower than the polls we’re seeing right now? We don’t know.

      What effect did January 6 have on people’s decisions? Some people may not want to talk about it. But the week before election they’ll probably be seeing political ads showing video about Jan. 6 and ask people straight up “do you want this to happen again?” which might people who might say Jan. 6 wasn’t a big deal to privately think otherwise just stay home on Election Day. Polling is based on past trends, so isn’t going to be good a predicting anything after unprecedented events.

      After this election pollsters have a baseline for how likely people will vote for a candidate lost the previous election, tried to overthrow the government, was convicted of felonies, had an assassination attempt vs. a candidate that suddenly became prominent after the sitting President and presumptive nominee dropped out the race 3.5 months before the election. But right now there’s not a lot of data there on this particular scenario.

      The data is simply too unreliable to make any prediction on anything. So… vote!

      • Good write up, but you’re doing the thing you said not to do (approaching this logically).

        My half baked opinion on this is that people are lying to pollsters. I think it’s people of all political walks and for varied reasons, but it’s the only thing that keeps making sense.

        Even exit polls are getting it wrong. Like, that can only happen if people are lying.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Exit polls getting it wrong didn’t mean people are lying. People may be refusing to answer in a way that skews one way or another.

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        Then what exactly are we deriving these claims of surge of support for Harris on, if not quantifiable recorded support for Harris?

    • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Polls become more and more unreliable in the modern age. We have the least accurate polling in 40 years according to pew research. Pollsters report a 3% margin of error when it’s more like 6-7%. There is every reason to be skeptical of polling and not take them too seriously.

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        Even if Polling is less accurate than it was, and I haven’t seen any such claims by an authority on this matter least of all Pew Research, it is still a lot more accurate than your thoughts and feelings, mate.

        Take a look at THIS LINK. It’s FiveThirtyEight’s composite polling for the state with individual polls listed down below, one by Redfield & Wilton Strategies sponsored by The Telegraph with Trump +8 and another by InsiderAdvantage sponsored by WTVT (Tampa, Fla.) with Trump +10.

        • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          He said don’t rely on polls “too much”, not “not at all”. Those with reading comprehension would recognize what he meant was that there is real possibility that there is a smaller gap to bridge than you might think.

          You’re on some weak ego tangent that has nothing to do with anything, quoting an expired poll aggregate of Biden v Trump.

          • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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            2 months ago

            Now here is what I am saying: Rely on the polls. Use data to back your beliefs. Reject emotional responses which fuel your personal biases, be objective and make the best choices based on verifiably true information. If you have a better source than a poll that is great, if not then the poll is better than you.

            • rekorse@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              If you think polling is that reliable be my guest. Noones trying to force you to be reasonable.