- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
Polls are crap
It’s a little bit notable how they change over time, but mostly it is just a bunch of poor methodology noise
But, I do feel it’s relevant to point out that even in polling land Biden has been gaining for the last few weeks and it’s notable which media outlets are pretending it is the opposite of that (like severely the opposite) and to wonder why that is
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It is July. There is August, September and October.
Do not believe the polls! Prepare to VOTE! Tell others to VOTE!
There is no leaning back or relieve until November 5.
Do not believe the medias polls. Especially not Newsweek.
GO OUT AND VOTE!
Just requested my absentee ballot yesterday.
If you can vote by mail, do it. Avoid the intimidation at the lines if you can.
But if you can’t, go in groups. Take as long as necessary, do not be deterred
Just vote, doesn’t matter the polls.
Oh but Biden / Trump has enough vote to win
So? Add another vote.
Vote in numbers too large to manipulate.
100% agree
Even if your presidential vote does not matter, you also vote for down ballot candidates. They are the ones that have the biggest influence on your life. Your state senator can write laws to protect you or harm you. Your town’s sheriff gets to decide if your local police officer should be fired and who should be hired instead.
Vermin Supreme 2024!
GO OUT AND VOTE!
I refuse to go out and vote.
Because I’m getting a mail-in ballot.
I would strongly suggest voting in-person if you happen to live in one of the swing states that has been clamping down on absentee ballots.
Thankfully, I’m not. But that’s good advice.
I live in a mostly Republican district that will inevitably vote Trump, I am still voting against Trump no matter what, regardless of what any polling says. American democracy as we know it ends if Trump wins
There’s a fair possibility that lots of “mostly republican” districts are relying on voter apathy to stay mostly republican. Good on ya for doing your part!
Don’t forget the voter suppression efforts! Make sure you’re registered, because the fascists are going to challenge as many as possible.
Don’t care. Just vote.
Yup, only one thing affects his chances of winning, and that’s voters in swing states. If all the ones that don’t like him vote for Biden, he’ll lose easily. If they don’t, he has a good chance to win.
Everyone that stays home or votes for Trump because Biden is too old, will be complicit in the ending of American Democracy and the deaths of thousands. Don’t think it can’t happen.
Why? Does he have some bad qualities?
Idk… someone asked him recently, and he could only rattle one off the top of his head.
Jesus Christ
No of course not. He’s an angel who respects all people and the law.
There are about 5 polls that actually matter in this election.
Pennsylvania (whoever wins this will likely take all), Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
Georgia, North Carolina, and Minnesota might matter but I don’t see much chance of them voting Blue, Blue, or Red respectively.
Wherever you are, just go vote to make the House as blue as you can. Mark down the democratic nominee for president while you’re there.
And even in those places, Trump supporters are known for not wanting to admit to pollsters that they support him, so they’re not super reliable
On the other hand, Biden supporters are known for not answering phone calls from unknown numbers which makes them even less reliable.
Yeah, maybe it evens out, maybe not.
That is one of 10 various reasons why the polls are not reliable in various directions
Trump’s margins over President Joe Biden have narrowed since June in two key swing states: Florida and North Carolina
Florida is a swing state? Ha, good one!
Lots of people are tired of culture war bullshit. Not the diehards, but the moderates. All they see are library book bans while their home insurance prices going up 5x.
I always believe that these articles are written by Republicans, in order to convince people that Biden doesn’t need their vote.
I can never believe that news has biased people and goals. It’s pathetic, as news should be reporting on issues and stating facts
Gave up on FiveThirtyEight after 2016. Once again, it’s all about turnout.
2016 was what gave FiveThirtyEight credibility. They’d given the highest chance to Trump, IIRC, out of the aggregators.
If I am remembering correctly then fivethirtyeight gave him a ~33% chance of winning, which was absolutely within the realm of possibility
I think it may have been around 20%, but 1 out of 5 is still reasonable.
Obviously the only poll that matters is the actual election, and that’s months away, and anything can happen, and everyone needs to do their part no matter what.
That said, I would expect Trump’s numbers to slide a bit from time to time as we get closer to the election. The closer we get to November, the more we’ll see independent and apathetic voters start to pay a little bit of attention, and there is just so much not to like with Trump. The MAGA-dominated GOP is incredibly myopic about how their views will be seen by the average American living outside the right wing echo chamber.
And as much as it would help them, I don’t think Republicans will be able to pretend to be moderate or sensible, even for the sake of the election. There is a perverse incentive to be as extreme as possible in order to gain support from other extremists and win influence on the right, but that behavior drags the party as a whole down when it is seen by anyone who isn’t already part of the base. For example, MTG gets national support and tons of media attention despite being a representative for a little rural district that no one gives a fuck about, all because she is a loud and controversial extremist. Anyone who moderates their tone or stops themselves from saying the quiet part out loud will lose influence to those who proudly proclaim their awfulness.
None of this is to say that victory is assured. Hell, I’m not even saying it’s likely (nor am I saying that it’s unlikely). I’m just saying that I think that there’s good reason to expect Trump’s poll numbers to dip from time to time.
Polls for a close race are never going to be great. That’s just how statistics works.
America is fairly split down the middle nationally, and winning or losing can come down to who gets people to turnout on election night in a couple purple states.
Even with Clinton V Trump, the polls were not wrong. They showed a close race, and 538 literally said that it was a 4 sided die roll with Trump on a side.
At the start of the year, I gave 95% odds that Trump would lose the election. So far, the biggest shake up has been the assassination attempt which didn’t give him a boost in the polls. I think the polls showing Biden losing are flawed because those showing him doing so more than the margin of error have 18 to 20-somethings voting more for Trump. However, I also believe that the way the polls change can inform us about changes to the political climate. (Systematic sampling bias should still show changes that have a global effect in the intended dataset.)
Furthermore, Biden already won against Trump before Jan 6, which showed every single warning about him was true. Right now, our biggest threat is complicity and voter suppression. Register to vote, encourage other people to register to vote, call everyone online who tells you not to vote for Joe Biden a Russian Bot, and everyone in meat space whatever name will hurt them the most (traitor is a good one, fascist is another.) Register, organize, encourage, show up. Vote early if you can. I have arrangements with people in my area who are able to taxi people to their polling place for free; consider doing the same.
Remind me what 538 was predicting the last time Trump won
Thanks for link! I’ll save others a click:
Trump had a near 30% chance per their analysis, which is pretty significant
Edit: so yeah a higher chance this time wouldn’t be great
I only trust the casinos at this point. What are the current odds?
Betus is giving 2:1 odds on the Democrat, I.e. they think the Democrats have a 33% chance to win.
Lol, although they’re probably as accurate as any poll.
Casinos are only worried about the juice, they could care less about the outcome of a bet.
Honestly, casinos have a reason to try to get it right. When pollsters get it wrong nothing really happens. I more or less agree with the logic of just looking at the casino odds as as much of a thing to trust as anything else.
Also, it’s apparently illegal to bet on the presidential election in the US, which I didn’t know.
Or… Not a good idea to allow bets on stuff the people betting can influence
Damn it, you are right. Casinos only goal is to make profit from the bets. The current odds only indicate bets already made.
With all the propagandists on higher alert and posting fervently- I suppose it’s a bit of a relief to see that even though the polls can’t be believed, that don’t ALL show the same bullshit attempts to cash in on clicks regardless of the damage.
