This should be a bigger win for Trump than in 2016. Lots of evidence out there suggesting that Biden is struggling with both early vote numbers (quantity) and the aforementioned struggling with traditional dependable voting basis. There's panic movement to mobilize but it's almost assuredly too late.
Georgia/North Carolina
My gut says that these two states will get split between Trump and Biden with Trump winning Georgia and Biden winning North Carolina. If these states both go to one or the other that will be a precursor to the outcome of the race.
Ohio
This is going to go to Trump. Biden's flip flopping and lies on fracking and energy will torpedo him here.
Pennsylvania
My gut says this will end up similar to Ohio but obviously Philly will be a massive wild card here. The rioting this week resulting from the local area fatal police shooting (not talking protest, but rioting/looting) I just get the sense that the average person has fatigue from and isn't helping in flipping the state to Biden. The question I ask myself is what has materially transpired in the last 4 years to flip the state from Trump to Biden? Hard for me to come up with a compelling argument.
Michigan
This is a fascinating state to me because it was one that the pollsters got so wrong in 2016 and my gut says that they are wildly off base in 2020. The lockdown fatigue in Michigan may be as extreme as anywhere else in the country. I've heard rumors that autoworkers are less supportive of Trump as they were in 2016 ... but then you hear from I believe a congressional rep reporting out this week that the feedback she was getting was not as advantageous to the Democrats as they thought. The giant wild card here is that the Senate Race in the state has a Republican candidate in John James that I've heard a few interviews of and he comes off as being very impressive. The more successful he is the more successful Trump will be in the state. I think it's a too close to call state at this point and it's not a state the Trump must win to get over 270 IF he wins Pennsylvania. Win both Pennsylvania and Michigan and the path for Biden to win gets slimmer and requires him pulling off the Georgia/North Carolina double or flipping Arizona.
Wisconsin/Minnesota
To say Wisconsin is a toss up isn't much of a shocker. But I agree with some that have pointed out that Minnesota is closer than people want to think for a couple of reasons. First, the blowback from the George Floyd riots and the feeling that the state/local government failed to protect the community was palpable after the fact. Second, my impression of the state is that it's a situation where the Minneapolis/St Paul area drives the state (similar to how Seattle drives Washington). I think Trump's rally where the Governor/Attorney General put capacity restrictions on the gathering is just terrible PR in mobilizing people for Trump. Trump's biggest strength as a politician is making those individuals that feel like they don't have a voice believe that they have a voice with Trump. I'm fascinated at seeing the numbers coming in for Minnesota on Tuesday.
Iowa
This is probably a lean to Trump at the moment and one of the biggest "blockers" for Trump in making the path for Biden more difficult to get to 270 as the math gets much easier for Trump with Iowa in the fold (similar story if Trump gets Nevada - but I expect Biden to win there)
Arizona
There seems to be this narrative that Biden is in a good spot in Arizona. Given the trending in the Hispanic vote, I find that hard to believe. Most polling suggests its within the margin of error (possible slight lean to Trump) and we know that Trump outperforms almost all of the polling in general. The only downside I see here is a Senate race where the Republican incumbent is in trouble. However, I'd be willing to bet that the way it goes down in Arizona is that they go check/balance route and split the party vote for President/Senate.
My final call is that I see Trump winning 280-258
Made the same call yesterday, 280. Just with Trump winning NC and losing Michigan. Agree he wins Florida rather easily.
Polls were wrong in 2016 obviously, mainstream is saying they were right in 2018, so the problem is fixed. 2018 was basically a conventional year. Problem is there was no Trump on the ballot in 2018 and it’s not conventional again.
This should be a bigger win for Trump than in 2016. Lots of evidence out there suggesting that Biden is struggling with both early vote numbers (quantity) and the aforementioned struggling with traditional dependable voting basis. There's panic movement to mobilize but it's almost assuredly too late.
Georgia/North Carolina
My gut says that these two states will get split between Trump and Biden with Trump winning Georgia and Biden winning North Carolina. If these states both go to one or the other that will be a precursor to the outcome of the race.
Ohio
This is going to go to Trump. Biden's flip flopping and lies on fracking and energy will torpedo him here.
Pennsylvania
My gut says this will end up similar to Ohio but obviously Philly will be a massive wild card here. The rioting this week resulting from the local area fatal police shooting (not talking protest, but rioting/looting) I just get the sense that the average person has fatigue from and isn't helping in flipping the state to Biden. The question I ask myself is what has materially transpired in the last 4 years to flip the state from Trump to Biden? Hard for me to come up with a compelling argument.
Michigan
This is a fascinating state to me because it was one that the pollsters got so wrong in 2016 and my gut says that they are wildly off base in 2020. The lockdown fatigue in Michigan may be as extreme as anywhere else in the country. I've heard rumors that autoworkers are less supportive of Trump as they were in 2016 ... but then you hear from I believe a congressional rep reporting out this week that the feedback she was getting was not as advantageous to the Democrats as they thought. The giant wild card here is that the Senate Race in the state has a Republican candidate in John James that I've heard a few interviews of and he comes off as being very impressive. The more successful he is the more successful Trump will be in the state. I think it's a too close to call state at this point and it's not a state the Trump must win to get over 270 IF he wins Pennsylvania. Win both Pennsylvania and Michigan and the path for Biden to win gets slimmer and requires him pulling off the Georgia/North Carolina double or flipping Arizona.
Wisconsin/Minnesota
To say Wisconsin is a toss up isn't much of a shocker. But I agree with some that have pointed out that Minnesota is closer than people want to think for a couple of reasons. First, the blowback from the George Floyd riots and the feeling that the state/local government failed to protect the community was palpable after the fact. Second, my impression of the state is that it's a situation where the Minneapolis/St Paul area drives the state (similar to how Seattle drives Washington). I think Trump's rally where the Governor/Attorney General put capacity restrictions on the gathering is just terrible PR in mobilizing people for Trump. Trump's biggest strength as a politician is making those individuals that feel like they don't have a voice believe that they have a voice with Trump. I'm fascinated at seeing the numbers coming in for Minnesota on Tuesday.
Iowa
This is probably a lean to Trump at the moment and one of the biggest "blockers" for Trump in making the path for Biden more difficult to get to 270 as the math gets much easier for Trump with Iowa in the fold (similar story if Trump gets Nevada - but I expect Biden to win there)
Arizona
There seems to be this narrative that Biden is in a good spot in Arizona. Given the trending in the Hispanic vote, I find that hard to believe. Most polling suggests its within the margin of error (possible slight lean to Trump) and we know that Trump outperforms almost all of the polling in general. The only downside I see here is a Senate race where the Republican incumbent is in trouble. However, I'd be willing to bet that the way it goes down in Arizona is that they go check/balance route and split the party vote for President/Senate.
My final call is that I see Trump winning 280-258
If Trump loses Georgia it indicates he will not have enough support nationally to win where he needs to in other states
If Trump wins Florida >3 he has a decent shot at winning in the rustbelt , If he wins FL by >4 Trump wins easily.
Trump wont have a big enough lead in PA to overcome the philly ballot harvesting cheating
If Trump can sneak away NH or NV and the odd districts in ME and NE he can still get to 270 without MI, MN, or PA... will only need WI (50/50) and AZ (R lean)
The higher the turnout is on election day the better for Trump
This should be a bigger win for Trump than in 2016. Lots of evidence out there suggesting that Biden is struggling with both early vote numbers (quantity) and the aforementioned struggling with traditional dependable voting basis. There's panic movement to mobilize but it's almost assuredly too late.
Georgia/North Carolina
My gut says that these two states will get split between Trump and Biden with Trump winning Georgia and Biden winning North Carolina. If these states both go to one or the other that will be a precursor to the outcome of the race.
Ohio
This is going to go to Trump. Biden's flip flopping and lies on fracking and energy will torpedo him here.
Pennsylvania
My gut says this will end up similar to Ohio but obviously Philly will be a massive wild card here. The rioting this week resulting from the local area fatal police shooting (not talking protest, but rioting/looting) I just get the sense that the average person has fatigue from and isn't helping in flipping the state to Biden. The question I ask myself is what has materially transpired in the last 4 years to flip the state from Trump to Biden? Hard for me to come up with a compelling argument.
Michigan
This is a fascinating state to me because it was one that the pollsters got so wrong in 2016 and my gut says that they are wildly off base in 2020. The lockdown fatigue in Michigan may be as extreme as anywhere else in the country. I've heard rumors that autoworkers are less supportive of Trump as they were in 2016 ... but then you hear from I believe a congressional rep reporting out this week that the feedback she was getting was not as advantageous to the Democrats as they thought. The giant wild card here is that the Senate Race in the state has a Republican candidate in John James that I've heard a few interviews of and he comes off as being very impressive. The more successful he is the more successful Trump will be in the state. I think it's a too close to call state at this point and it's not a state the Trump must win to get over 270 IF he wins Pennsylvania. Win both Pennsylvania and Michigan and the path for Biden to win gets slimmer and requires him pulling off the Georgia/North Carolina double or flipping Arizona.
Wisconsin/Minnesota
To say Wisconsin is a toss up isn't much of a shocker. But I agree with some that have pointed out that Minnesota is closer than people want to think for a couple of reasons. First, the blowback from the George Floyd riots and the feeling that the state/local government failed to protect the community was palpable after the fact. Second, my impression of the state is that it's a situation where the Minneapolis/St Paul area drives the state (similar to how Seattle drives Washington). I think Trump's rally where the Governor/Attorney General put capacity restrictions on the gathering is just terrible PR in mobilizing people for Trump. Trump's biggest strength as a politician is making those individuals that feel like they don't have a voice believe that they have a voice with Trump. I'm fascinated at seeing the numbers coming in for Minnesota on Tuesday.
Iowa
This is probably a lean to Trump at the moment and one of the biggest "blockers" for Trump in making the path for Biden more difficult to get to 270 as the math gets much easier for Trump with Iowa in the fold (similar story if Trump gets Nevada - but I expect Biden to win there)
Arizona
There seems to be this narrative that Biden is in a good spot in Arizona. Given the trending in the Hispanic vote, I find that hard to believe. Most polling suggests its within the margin of error (possible slight lean to Trump) and we know that Trump outperforms almost all of the polling in general. The only downside I see here is a Senate race where the Republican incumbent is in trouble. However, I'd be willing to bet that the way it goes down in Arizona is that they go check/balance route and split the party vote for President/Senate.
My final call is that I see Trump winning 280-258
If Trump loses Georgia it indicates he will not have enough support nationally to win where he needs to in other states
If Trump wins Florida >3 he has a decent shot at winning in the rustbelt , If he wins FL by >4 Trump wins easily.
Trump wont have a big enough lead in PA to overcome the philly ballot harvesting cheating
If Trump can sneak away NH or NV and the odd districts in ME and NE he can still get to 270 without MI, MN, or PA... will only need WI (50/50) and AZ (R lean)
The higher the turnout is on election day the better for Trump
The turnout point is a really good one
I feel like there's still a few wild rides to go between now and Tuesday
This should be a bigger win for Trump than in 2016. Lots of evidence out there suggesting that Biden is struggling with both early vote numbers (quantity) and the aforementioned struggling with traditional dependable voting basis. There's panic movement to mobilize but it's almost assuredly too late.
Georgia/North Carolina
My gut says that these two states will get split between Trump and Biden with Trump winning Georgia and Biden winning North Carolina. If these states both go to one or the other that will be a precursor to the outcome of the race.
Ohio
This is going to go to Trump. Biden's flip flopping and lies on fracking and energy will torpedo him here.
Pennsylvania
My gut says this will end up similar to Ohio but obviously Philly will be a massive wild card here. The rioting this week resulting from the local area fatal police shooting (not talking protest, but rioting/looting) I just get the sense that the average person has fatigue from and isn't helping in flipping the state to Biden. The question I ask myself is what has materially transpired in the last 4 years to flip the state from Trump to Biden? Hard for me to come up with a compelling argument.
Michigan
This is a fascinating state to me because it was one that the pollsters got so wrong in 2016 and my gut says that they are wildly off base in 2020. The lockdown fatigue in Michigan may be as extreme as anywhere else in the country. I've heard rumors that autoworkers are less supportive of Trump as they were in 2016 ... but then you hear from I believe a congressional rep reporting out this week that the feedback she was getting was not as advantageous to the Democrats as they thought. The giant wild card here is that the Senate Race in the state has a Republican candidate in John James that I've heard a few interviews of and he comes off as being very impressive. The more successful he is the more successful Trump will be in the state. I think it's a too close to call state at this point and it's not a state the Trump must win to get over 270 IF he wins Pennsylvania. Win both Pennsylvania and Michigan and the path for Biden to win gets slimmer and requires him pulling off the Georgia/North Carolina double or flipping Arizona.
Wisconsin/Minnesota
To say Wisconsin is a toss up isn't much of a shocker. But I agree with some that have pointed out that Minnesota is closer than people want to think for a couple of reasons. First, the blowback from the George Floyd riots and the feeling that the state/local government failed to protect the community was palpable after the fact. Second, my impression of the state is that it's a situation where the Minneapolis/St Paul area drives the state (similar to how Seattle drives Washington). I think Trump's rally where the Governor/Attorney General put capacity restrictions on the gathering is just terrible PR in mobilizing people for Trump. Trump's biggest strength as a politician is making those individuals that feel like they don't have a voice believe that they have a voice with Trump. I'm fascinated at seeing the numbers coming in for Minnesota on Tuesday.
Iowa
This is probably a lean to Trump at the moment and one of the biggest "blockers" for Trump in making the path for Biden more difficult to get to 270 as the math gets much easier for Trump with Iowa in the fold (similar story if Trump gets Nevada - but I expect Biden to win there)
Arizona
There seems to be this narrative that Biden is in a good spot in Arizona. Given the trending in the Hispanic vote, I find that hard to believe. Most polling suggests its within the margin of error (possible slight lean to Trump) and we know that Trump outperforms almost all of the polling in general. The only downside I see here is a Senate race where the Republican incumbent is in trouble. However, I'd be willing to bet that the way it goes down in Arizona is that they go check/balance route and split the party vote for President/Senate.
I’ll leave you with this, the USC Dornsife “panel” poll. Famously, the final USC poll in 2016 had Trump ahead by three in the popular vote over Clinton, the only national survey to see him winning. That was wrong inasmuch as Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but its numbers may have captured the late break towards him among voters just before Election Day. This year their poll has scarcely budged in months. Today they have it Biden 54, Trump 42. “Catastrophic” doesn’t begin to describe the magnitude of the polling error if Trump pulls it out on Tuesday.
I know all the poles and all the media and everyone in the world thinks Biden will win, which makes me wonder why Trump keeps drawing thousands in the rain, and Biden can't fill a backyard in the suburbs. So I am going with Trump, because my eyes tell me something all the poles and media don't. His supporters love him. NOGAF about Biden.
Love Trumps inertia
He's like a machine at the end. Biden is on life support drooling into a cup somewhere out of sight.
I know ALL the "evidence" says Biden, and my rational mind says Biden, but my eyes just keep telling me this massive enthusiasm gap can't be made up.
Pretty much
My big fear is having to come here if Biden wins
Please vote for Trump
Nah. The message boards are always best after a loss.
Biden will fail everyone soon enough, and he’s actually corrupt. The Obama years were awesome on the offense for right-leaning posters and led to Trump winning.
Meanwhile, younger looking husband is likely banging someone else, knowing my experience of kooky white leftist married people.
I know all the poles and all the media and everyone in the world thinks Biden will win, which makes me wonder why Trump keeps drawing thousands in the rain, and Biden can't fill a backyard in the suburbs. So I am going with Trump, because my eyes tell me something all the poles and media don't. His supporters love him. NOGAF about Biden.
Love Trumps inertia
He's like a machine at the end. Biden is on life support drooling into a cup somewhere out of sight.
I know ALL the "evidence" says Biden, and my rational mind says Biden, but my eyes just keep telling me this massive enthusiasm gap can't be made up.
Pretty much
My big fear is having to come here if Biden wins
Please vote for Trump
Nah. The message boards are always best after a loss.
Biden will fail everyone soon enough, and he’s actually corrupt. The Obama years were awesome on the offense for right-leaning posters and led to Trump winning.
Meanwhile, younger looking husband is likely banging someone else, knowing my experience of kooky white leftist married people.
I’ll leave you with this, the USC Dornsife “panel” poll. Famously, the final USC poll in 2016 had Trump ahead by three in the popular vote over Clinton, the only national survey to see him winning. That was wrong inasmuch as Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but its numbers may have captured the late break towards him among voters just before Election Day. This year their poll has scarcely budged in months. Today they have it Biden 54, Trump 42. “Catastrophic” doesn’t begin to describe the magnitude of the polling error if Trump pulls it out on Tuesday.
The polls have gone from dumb to straight straight up lies.
Anyone who works for a fucking polling company should be drawn and quartered.
I’ll leave you with this, the USC Dornsife “panel” poll. Famously, the final USC poll in 2016 had Trump ahead by three in the popular vote over Clinton, the only national survey to see him winning. That was wrong inasmuch as Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but its numbers may have captured the late break towards him among voters just before Election Day. This year their poll has scarcely budged in months. Today they have it Biden 54, Trump 42. “Catastrophic” doesn’t begin to describe the magnitude of the polling error if Trump pulls it out on Tuesday.
The polls have gone from dumb to straight straight up lies.
Anyone who works for a fucking polling company should be drawn and quartered.
lol
OK, obk.
The people responding could be lying, but the polls are just telling you what they said. Simmer down and quit kooking out. Get some indica.
As the post below points out - there are just too many variables today. No land lines and I like most people don't answer my cell phone for strange numbers. So, you get this small number that actually participate in the poll and that sample suffers from a high degree of randomness. In 1990 I would have answered the land line (no caller ID) and then would have participated in a quick poll. Not today. Second, I would never tell a stranger that I was voting for Trump. Can you imagine a black person telling a stranger that they were voting for Trump? So, you get a database of random people and then try to scientifically assemble it into an actual representation of who is actually going to vote? Sure, cause that just science.
I think it it Trump, but very worried about the margin of dem cheating.
I’ll leave you with this, the USC Dornsife “panel” poll. Famously, the final USC poll in 2016 had Trump ahead by three in the popular vote over Clinton, the only national survey to see him winning. That was wrong inasmuch as Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but its numbers may have captured the late break towards him among voters just before Election Day. This year their poll has scarcely budged in months. Today they have it Biden 54, Trump 42. “Catastrophic” doesn’t begin to describe the magnitude of the polling error if Trump pulls it out on Tuesday.
The polls have gone from dumb to straight straight up lies.
Anyone who works for a fucking polling company should be drawn and quartered.
Polling In 2020 [By - Dave In Florida] —Misanthropic Humanitarian Polls … uh … What are the good for? Absolutely nothing!
I think most of us remember my terrible predictions of a Romney victory in 2012. I literally hid for 6 months after that, out of shame.
I did finally delurk and made a few comments during the 2014 election. I was pretty active during 2016 as one of the few pointing out that Trump could win, by pointing to polls like the LA Times/USC poll that used a different methodology. I was also correct regarding both Rick Scott and DeSantis in 2018.
In 2012 I trusted the information that was contained in polls, and I learned the hard way how bad they can be.
Polling is broken.
There are a number of problems with the polling industry, but the biggest problem they are dealing with is response rate. Prior to 2000, polling was done primarily through random dial landline calling and they would get a response rate of 50%. That means half the people they contacted would answer their questions.
The response rate today is 2%. 98 out of every 100 attempts to reach a voter is rejected. Of those that do respond, there is a very high sampling bias toward young, female, white Democrats. One of the pollsters I admire right now is Rich Baris, and he said, “the very first Republican I get to respond to every poll sounds like a Bill Kristol clone”.
Getting a representative sample of the electorate is HARD.
And that is the key to polling, you are getting a single person to be a proxy for the voting intentions of about 10,000 people. If you don’t get a truly representative sample, then you don’t have an accurate picture, before you even attempt to apply demographic weighting. You need age, ethnicity, class, values, income, genealogy, location, etc etc. A middle-class voter in Bucks County PA has a completely different voting profile than a middle-class voter in Greene County PA.
To compensate for the problems with response rates, polling firms have begun to use multiple “modes” of sampling. They use online polls, text messages, phone calls with a redirect to web sites, emails, direct voice with same ethnicity interviewers, automated response polling, and others I probably don’t even know about. Note that the LA Times/USC poll that I mention above was an interesting attempt at a new mode, since they had a fixed pool for 3200 voters that they sampled every week.
The better pollsters will use multiple modes, because each mode has its own inherent sampling bias. Young millennial women are much more likely to answer an online poll. A good pollster will also do oversampling. They will keep polling until they have enough of the representative demographics, and then will discard the extra responses from demographics that are overrepresented.
This bring us to the next problem. How do you know what a representative sample is? Every pollster works with a voter file. These are databases that are compiled after every election based on voter records. They are correlated with marketing data to produce a profile of the demographic makeup of every precinct, town, city, region, and state in the country. The interesting thing about the voter file is that it can often tell you when a respondent is lying to you. They will tell you their voting history and you can look directly into the voter file to see they are not being truthful.
So with a representative sample and a good voter file, you can get a good idea of how a region or state will vote.
And this almost never happens.
There are many reasons why, but at the core is the inability to get a representative sample. Right now, the one demographic that is brutally hard to sample is working class males. If a poll gets a sample at all, they will get perhaps 1 for every 20 college educated, age 30-45, white, Democrat women.
When polls are wrong it is often because they have over represented a demographic or used the wrong demographic as a proxy. Many polls will consider a hipster working at Starbucks and a factory worker to both be a working-class male. But they don’t vote the same at all.
By the way, this working-class male vote that is so hard to sample? They will vote for Trump 65-30.
And these are just the polls that are getting bad results from sampling errors. There is also tremendous pressure on pollsters to generate results that are favorable in the opinion of their clients. During 2016, the best media pollster, in terms of predicting the correct outcome of the election, was ORC. They were polling for CNN. CNN fired them for being right.
There are legitimate reports of pollsters deliberately targeting a bad sample in order to inflate polls. And there are rumors of some well-known pollsters deliberately faking results. Nate Silver is an enabler in this game by giving poor ratings to polling firms that deviate from the “consensus” while giving provably bad polls an “A rating”. Nate Silver waxed poetic over polls that Nate Cohn did for the New York Times, which included counties in Pennsylvania voting for Biden that have never voted for a Democrat. Meanwhile, last weekend he manufactured an excuse to exclude Trafalgar from his models.
Ironically, it turns out that polling is one of the least accurate indicators of election results. Factors that have historically done a better job of predicting elections include the Norpath model, the Gallup “better off than 4 years ago” number, incumbent vote share during primaries, and new voter registration advantage.
Even the results of Ohio and Florida are more predictive than polling, since other than JFK, no president has ever won without winning at least one of them.
Finally, let me mention that it is often possible to verify if a poll is correct or not just by checking against known quantities. We saw this problem with recent Michigan polls where the polls were showing that Democrats were self-reporting that they had already voted at a 3:1 rate over Republicans. The problem with that poll is that you could check against actual voting records and see that the early voting was at a 1:1 ratio. Obviously, the poll is wrong.
We are seeing the same things in both Texas and Florida right now, where polls are being released that are mathematically impossible given known data from early vote totals reported by the states.
The bottom line is that the polling industry is broken right now, and possibly just as corrupt as our other institutions. You should not be putting faith in public polling, especially when the polling contradicts other historical indicators. I am hoping that this election will finally cause the industry to take a hard look at itself. But I doubt that it will. There is no downside to getting a poll wrong, you still get paid. And probably get paid more.
Comments
And legit TLDR, keep Teqing Teq
Polls were wrong in 2016 obviously, mainstream is saying they were right in 2018, so the problem is fixed. 2018 was basically a conventional year. Problem is there was no Trump on the ballot in 2018 and it’s not conventional again.
Cliff notes anyone?
Does Dr. Jeckyl or Mr. Hyde win?
If Trump wins Florida >3 he has a decent shot at winning in the rustbelt , If he wins FL by >4 Trump wins easily.
Trump wont have a big enough lead in PA to overcome the philly ballot
harvestingcheatingIf Trump can sneak away NH or NV and the odd districts in ME and NE he can still get to 270 without MI, MN, or PA... will only need WI (50/50) and AZ (R lean)
The higher the turnout is on election day the better for Trump
Cook it.
I feel like there's still a few wild rides to go between now and Tuesday
MAGA
Anyone who works for a fucking polling company should be drawn and quartered.
OK, obk.
The people responding could be lying, but the polls are just telling you what they said. Simmer down and quit kooking out. Get some indica.
I think it it Trump, but very worried about the margin of dem cheating.
http://ace.mu.nu/
Polling In 2020 [By - Dave In Florida]
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
Polls … uh … What are the good for? Absolutely nothing!
I think most of us remember my terrible predictions of a Romney victory in 2012. I literally hid for 6 months after that, out of shame.
I did finally delurk and made a few comments during the 2014 election. I was pretty active during 2016 as one of the few pointing out that Trump could win, by pointing to polls like the LA Times/USC poll that used a different methodology. I was also correct regarding both Rick Scott and DeSantis in 2018.
In 2012 I trusted the information that was contained in polls, and I learned the hard way how bad they can be.
Polling is broken.
There are a number of problems with the polling industry, but the biggest problem they are dealing with is response rate. Prior to 2000, polling was done primarily through random dial landline calling and they would get a response rate of 50%. That means half the people they contacted would answer their questions.
The response rate today is 2%. 98 out of every 100 attempts to reach a voter is rejected. Of those that do respond, there is a very high sampling bias toward young, female, white Democrats. One of the pollsters I admire right now is Rich Baris, and he said, “the very first Republican I get to respond to every poll sounds like a Bill Kristol clone”.
Getting a representative sample of the electorate is HARD.
And that is the key to polling, you are getting a single person to be a proxy for the voting intentions of about 10,000 people. If you don’t get a truly representative sample, then you don’t have an accurate picture, before you even attempt to apply demographic weighting. You need age, ethnicity, class, values, income, genealogy, location, etc etc. A middle-class voter in Bucks County PA has a completely different voting profile than a middle-class voter in Greene County PA.
To compensate for the problems with response rates, polling firms have begun to use multiple “modes” of sampling. They use online polls, text messages, phone calls with a redirect to web sites, emails, direct voice with same ethnicity interviewers, automated response polling, and others I probably don’t even know about. Note that the LA Times/USC poll that I mention above was an interesting attempt at a new mode, since they had a fixed pool for 3200 voters that they sampled every week.
The better pollsters will use multiple modes, because each mode has its own inherent sampling bias. Young millennial women are much more likely to answer an online poll. A good pollster will also do oversampling. They will keep polling until they have enough of the representative demographics, and then will discard the extra responses from demographics that are overrepresented.
This bring us to the next problem. How do you know what a representative sample is? Every pollster works with a voter file. These are databases that are compiled after every election based on voter records. They are correlated with marketing data to produce a profile of the demographic makeup of every precinct, town, city, region, and state in the country. The interesting thing about the voter file is that it can often tell you when a respondent is lying to you. They will tell you their voting history and you can look directly into the voter file to see they are not being truthful.
So with a representative sample and a good voter file, you can get a good idea of how a region or state will vote.
And this almost never happens.
There are many reasons why, but at the core is the inability to get a representative sample. Right now, the one demographic that is brutally hard to sample is working class males. If a poll gets a sample at all, they will get perhaps 1 for every 20 college educated, age 30-45, white, Democrat women.
When polls are wrong it is often because they have over represented a demographic or used the wrong demographic as a proxy. Many polls will consider a hipster working at Starbucks and a factory worker to both be a working-class male. But they don’t vote the same at all.
By the way, this working-class male vote that is so hard to sample? They will vote for Trump 65-30.
And these are just the polls that are getting bad results from sampling errors. There is also tremendous pressure on pollsters to generate results that are favorable in the opinion of their clients. During 2016, the best media pollster, in terms of predicting the correct outcome of the election, was ORC. They were polling for CNN. CNN fired them for being right.
There are legitimate reports of pollsters deliberately targeting a bad sample in order to inflate polls. And there are rumors of some well-known pollsters deliberately faking results. Nate Silver is an enabler in this game by giving poor ratings to polling firms that deviate from the “consensus” while giving provably bad polls an “A rating”. Nate Silver waxed poetic over polls that Nate Cohn did for the New York Times, which included counties in Pennsylvania voting for Biden that have never voted for a Democrat. Meanwhile, last weekend he manufactured an excuse to exclude Trafalgar from his models.
Ironically, it turns out that polling is one of the least accurate indicators of election results. Factors that have historically done a better job of predicting elections include the Norpath model, the Gallup “better off than 4 years ago” number, incumbent vote share during primaries, and new voter registration advantage.
Even the results of Ohio and Florida are more predictive than polling, since other than JFK, no president has ever won without winning at least one of them.
Finally, let me mention that it is often possible to verify if a poll is correct or not just by checking against known quantities. We saw this problem with recent Michigan polls where the polls were showing that Democrats were self-reporting that they had already voted at a 3:1 rate over Republicans. The problem with that poll is that you could check against actual voting records and see that the early voting was at a 1:1 ratio. Obviously, the poll is wrong.
We are seeing the same things in both Texas and Florida right now, where polls are being released that are mathematically impossible given known data from early vote totals reported by the states.
The bottom line is that the polling industry is broken right now, and possibly just as corrupt as our other institutions. You should not be putting faith in public polling, especially when the polling contradicts other historical indicators. I am hoping that this election will finally cause the industry to take a hard look at itself. But I doubt that it will. There is no downside to getting a poll wrong, you still get paid. And probably get paid more.