One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by andybak » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #115

andybak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If US presidential election pollster cold calls are reaching voters in the UK, things are really screwed up.

I'm not suggesting that. I was suggesting that unsolicited calls in general aren't that bad in the UK. We have our own pollsters you know!

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

#142

Post by ALittleLight » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

throwaway38153 wrote: post #99

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 p…

I'm always finding commonality between Roman history and current events (perhaps because Roman history is the only history I read). For example, last night I was reading one of Cicero's speeches against Catiline, and in the preface for the speech the modern author giving context writes:

"To these men and his other supporters, Catiline offered the policy they longed for - cancellation of debts. It was precisely the policy to win him the support of the desperate from all ranks of society - and one that no respectable politician was prepared to offer"

Catiline has supporters both from the upper classes, where they had borrowed too much money and fallen into debt, and from the lower classes where they didn't have enough money in the first place, as well as dispossessed former soldiers.

It makes me think of some left contingents today where they are supported alike by upper-middle class children who have become burdened by inescapable student loan debt and lower class people who were just always burdened by poverty.

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

#143

Post by rayiner » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #88

koolba wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the method of contact would skew toward people who have a means for the method of contact or location. Cell phones might include less seniors. Questioning people walking into Whole Foods is going to give you a different set than people walking into Cracker Barrel. If the source set of names and numbers is truly representative, I think random calling could work if you make sure to include "did not response" as a…

I suspect "did not respond" is already more than 15% and increasing constantly. I could easily see it already being 50%+. Even a layman would know to be suspicious of "12% Biden, 11% Trump, 77% No Response". I can't even tell you if a pollster called me... I'm getting about half-a-dozen calls a day from rando numbers that want to refinance my nonexistent student loans or talk to me about my home's nonexistent warrant…

The “no response” is actually more like 80-90%. See: https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-editors/special-...

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

#144

Post by Damorian » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

throwaway38153 wrote: post #99

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 p…

Piggybacking onto this, since it looks like something the hivemind may disagree with and isn't sourced in your link, breaking down by family income, between $30,000-$150,000 is majority lean rep, outside those bounds is majority lean dem. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/13/2016-party-i...

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

#145

Post by throwaway32849 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

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.

> Most people I know voted Republican were low-wage working people, where my highly paid educated friends voted Democrat

Biden actively courted high-earning, educated voters with his free college and student loan forgiveness policies, which amount to a wealth transfer to people who already have higher lifetime average earnings and are at a competitive advantage in the employment marketplace. Not very progressive:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg...

He also pledged to fund it by raising corporate income taxes, which will reduce the profitability (and therefore, the value) of all publicly traded companies in the US, which means anyone with a 401(k) or IRA will indirectly be paying for this, even if they don't have student loan debt or a college degree at all.

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

#146

Post by bootlooped » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

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.

Most/many polls weight for this. If the people they reach are 60% seniors and 40% non-seniors, they know that seniors don't make up 60% of the population, so they weight based on likely voter demographic numbers. After 2016 they also started weighting on education level, because they thought that was a factor in the polling miss of 2016.

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

#147

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #137

dillondoyle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research has confirmed that people don't lie to pollsters in any meaningful way when asked their head to head preference. It's mentioned in the last graph of the article. The crux of this article is rather than 'shy trump voters' there is simply a large amount of these Trump voters who will refuse to take a survey flat out.

Isn't trump voters refusing to take polls what everyone means when they say "shy trump voters"?

As far as I understand, the traditional sense of "shy voter" is to describe your poll numbers (i.e. the people who did take the survey) which answered "undecided" when they were shy about their choice. This also goes hand in hand with things like observed differences in answers of in-person surveys when the person doing the survey is/isn't from the same demographic as the person being surveyed.

A disproportional amount of people (after controlling for race/gender/income/education/etc) simply refusing to answer the survey has similar but conceptually different effect; one that (as the OP claims - perhaps they're mistaken) is new and had not been a significant factor before.

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

#148

Post by abathur » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

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?

It hasn't been that long, though.

This is a bit of a tautology, but I guess it skews towards people who actually advertise/distribute their primary phone numbers (i.e., for business, or as a contact point for some club/group/community/org) or are otherwise in a field/business that basically boils down to networking.

I'm not sure exactly when I stopped answering calls outside of my contacts, but I know it's in the past ~9 years (and I feel like I've only been very consistent about not answering for 2-3 years). I'm fairly phone-avoidant, and almost never receive a "real" call from a non-contact.

But it wouldn't shock me if my last real-estate agent answered her personal cell if I called from a number she didn't recognize.

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

#149

Post by gruez » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

evo_9 wrote: post #104

Who replies honestly to political question to random strangers? I know I don't. What's the benefit of letting anyone know where you stand politically at this point? None. It's much more likely - no matter which side you're for - that the person asking could have an adverse reaction. Things are just way too polarized now, not sure how that can change, but that's how it is. I mean outside friends/family I simply take a…

>It's much more likely - no matter which side you're for - that the person asking could have an adverse reaction. Things are just way too polarized now, not sure how that can change, but that's how it is.

What? When was the last time a pollster got upset because of your response? Or are you somehow worried that the results will leak out and you'll get canceled?

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

#150

Post by pc86 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #137

dillondoyle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research has confirmed that people don't lie to pollsters in any meaningful way when asked their head to head preference. It's mentioned in the last graph of the article. The crux of this article is rather than 'shy trump voters' there is simply a large amount of these Trump voters who will refuse to take a survey flat out.

Isn't trump voters refusing to take polls what everyone means when they say "shy trump voters"?

No, "shy Trump voter" specifically means someone who says they are not voting for Trump (or undecided) then does so, because they're afraid to "admit" voting for him.