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One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

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Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#91

Post by stanford_labrat »

EEMac wrote: post #34
twelfthnight wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People tell the truth, when you ask them who they’re voting for. They really do, on average. The reason why the polls are wrong is because the people who were answering these surveys were the wrong people. The takeaway from the article is not that people lie, but just that people who are more trusting (according to the GSS survey) are more likely to take surveys and are also more likely to vote Democratic.

> People tell the truth, when you ask them who they’re voting for. They really do, on average. That might have been true in the past. From 2016-2020, Trump supporters have been loudly and repeatedly called racistNaziMisogynistHomophobe, or the polite version, "deplorable". That is not an environment that encourages honesty.

As a center right moderate I definitely feel this. Especially at work/with acquaintances where I feel compelled to just silently nod and agree with everything being said or else risk my career and social standing.

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#92

Post by majormajor »

daxfohl wrote: post #16
ericb wrote: post #9

Has anyone done a study that maps voting machine software used vs. "polling error" in key states?

Before 2016, polls were much more accurate. And paper ballots were the norm. So there's that.

So you don't trust the results of the 2016 election? You think Trump stole it?

(As far as I can tell, actually, 2012 pre-election polling was off by a few percentage points too, and showed Romney leading for most of October...)

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

tshaddox wrote: post #73
dragonwriter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s pretty obvious from election maps and donor data that the democrats are now the party of coastal/urban elites Urban populations, sure. Not particularly coastal aside from the fact that there's more urban population on the coasts, as county-level maps show pretty clearly. “Elites” are more dubious. Sure, Democrats and Republicans (counting leaners) are closer to parity for voters with less than a college degree…

What are we calling "urban" here? More than 80% of Americans live in urban areas. Are we using a circular definition of "urban" that means "big cities with a large Democrat majority"?

> What are we calling "urban" here? More than 80% of Americans live in urban areas.

By the census definitions, which don't separate out suburban as a separate category, but encompass what would normally be thought of that way as part of urban. If you look at the urban core counties in the Pew list below and a by-county election map of the US, there's a pretty close correlation, visually at least.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/07/29/prior-to-covid-19...

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#94

Post by jerf »

johnnyg wrote: post #80

The book Thinking in Bets points out that predictions are given with a % of certainty. If I say X party will win at Y% and Z party wins, it doesn't mean the model is broken.

On the other hand, this makes the whole operation unfalsifiable in any reasonable time frame. "I always said the candidate had a .1% chance of winning!"

Given two major elections in a row where the results were essentially out of the error bars, it is perfectly reasonable to be dropping your confidence on pollsters very hard. Once was perhaps understandable, but twice is getting into "right .01% of the time" territory.

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#96

Post by parliament32 »

losteric wrote: post #45
ianleeclark wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that not enough people bring up is the rampant robocalling. Before I left the US around a year and a half ago, I was getting 2-3 calls a day. Basically, if I ever got a call from a number not in my contact list, I would never answer. I know I'm not the only one like this, but I don't have any numbers to back it up. Even in Germany where robocalling seemingly doesn't exist, I still have this reflex, so it ma…

> Basically, if I ever got a call from a number not in my contact list, I would never answer. I know I'm not the only one like this, but I don't have any numbers to back it up. huh... I have literally never met a single person that answers cold calls on personal lines, this was already SOP when I was a kid. Seriously, who's picking up those calls?

Hell, this was SOP before we even had Caller ID! If you weren't expecting a call, you let it go to the answering machine and maybe pick it up after they started talking. "If it's important, they'll leave a message"

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#97

Post by mring33621 »

0x53 wrote: post #3

One of the biggest issues I think is that the polling is still done by just randomly calling people. I think I agree that there is a large skew introduced by the simple fact of only reaching people willing to answer a call from an unknown number.

Agreed.

I would also suspect that there are some other factors:

- people hoping for change are more willing to answer polls

- people who are ashamed of their opinions are more unwilling to answer polls

The second one, perhaps, gives too much credit for self-awareness, though.

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#98

Post by parliament32 »

tshaddox wrote: post #79
shinjitsu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if those polled fear for their jobs if they answer the 'wrong way' in the poll and others find out about it: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078 -> https://www.trumpaccountability.net/

How could that tweet possibly have anything to do with polls? Any remotely scientific poll would surely be anonymous. That has nothing to do with people willingly tweeting their political views and then attempt to cover them up or expect them to be forgotten in the future.

If you get a call from an unknown caller asking "hey who're you voting for", how do you know if it's a proper scientific pollster or your employer's brother-in-law?

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#99

Post by throwaway38153 »

x87678r wrote: post #24

I think no one really knows what the different parties represent any more. Most people I know voted Republican were low-wage working people, where my highly paid educated friends voted Democrat. Isn't it supposed to be other way around? No wonder everyone is confused.

The current arrangement is high and low vs the middle, or HLvM for short.

The left is composed of two factions, not one. The left is the high within society aligned with the low in society to destroy the middle in society. [1]

When the power of the upper class is not secure, or somehow threatened by a middle class, the upper class forms an alliance with the lower classes. Today, you see the highly capitalized media powers (like Big Tech and primary media corporations) and other "woke" corporations forming an "alliance of the fringes" with historically marginalized groups, against the more traditionalist middle class. In the past, Kings would form an alliance with peasants to fend off nobles.

Bertrand de Jouvenel described this dynamic early in the 20th century, but it's a common refrain throughout history.

Neoabsolutism is a modern framework for understanding this dynamic.

[1] https://neoabsolutism.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/high-low-vers...

Re: One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong

#100

Post by throwaway201103 »

andybak wrote: post #56
losteric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, if I ever got a call from a number not in my contact list, I would never answer. I know I'm not the only one like this, but I don't have any numbers to back it up. huh... I have literally never met a single person that answers cold calls on personal lines, this was already SOP when I was a kid. Seriously, who's picking up those calls?

> Seriously, who's picking up those calls? People who don't live in countries where the problem is this bad? I'm in the UK and I get about 1 unsolicited call a month. If I didn't pick up numbers I didn't recognize I would have missed my Doctor (this week), several new client leads and multiple friends and acquaintences that changed their number.

Also people older than ~60 who still have a landline at home, and grew up without caller-id. Answering unknown phone calls was normal, because you never knew who the caller was.
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