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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

#171

Post by dnhbt »

ballenf wrote: post #166
gruez wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

How do you know it's a pollster calling?

If you can't admit you voted for someone, maybe you shouldn't be voting for them. If you are afraid of your neigbors finding out your political leanings, maybe the problem isn't your neighbors but the candidate you are supporting.

If you want to support a specific candidate and everything they believe in, that's just fine, but you should feel comfortable saying as much and, if you feel up for it, laying out the reasoning.

I am completely fine admitting voting for Biden, why he isn't my favorite and who I would prefer. I feel zero shame, you shouldn't either.

Just my POV.

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

#172

Post by PeterisP »

mring33621 wrote: post #108
bra-ket wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a bit hard to trust mainstream media that have been lying to you and called you 'racist' for 4 years.

Voting for racists makes you a racist.

Well, so that means roughly half of the country is racist. No matter what you think of them, if you want your polls to work, this means that your polls have to also work properly on measuring the voting preferences of racists as well; a poll needs to make racists comfortable enough to reveal their intent, or it is a useless poll that won't properly reflect reality of what the people want and what the people will do.

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

#173

Post by pmiller2 »

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?

Last presidential election cycle, I seriously snapped when I was getting multiple calls a day, every day. I’d never answer them, but blocking the numbers never did any good.

I somehow managed to get the name of one of the companies responsible for it. Then, I called them up — not the call center employees who were making the calls, the actual corporate office — and I told them to please stop calling me, or, real soon, I was gonna start looking for someone to sue.

The calls stopped. I don’t think I even got any this cycle.

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

#174

Post by newswasboring »

rayiner wrote: post #116

> I reached out to the smartest polling guy I know: David Shor, an independent data analyst who’s a veteran of the Obama presidential campaigns who formerly operated a massive web-based survey at Civis Analytics before leaving earlier this year Before being fired for pointing out that violent protests alienate people: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-... Schor’s firing is a tremendous examp…

My heart broke when reading your article. There are some very different kinds of accusations put on Shor. The most hilarious is definitely the "you are not black so shut up" argument. I understand lived experience and how it impacts a person's ability to speak on a matter. that I have never seen a person even attempt at explaining how the author's lived experience corrupted their chain of thought. Also the original paper was written by a non white person. In my view this is worse than an ad hominem attack because in this tactics you feel like a whole community just insulated you. I don't understand what exactly the people restricting speech in this way are trying to achieve.

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

#175

Post by dillondoyle »

pc86 wrote: post #150
colinmhayes wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Correct

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

#176

Post by burrows »

dnhbt wrote: post #171
ballenf wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it's a pollster calling?

If you can't admit you voted for someone, maybe you shouldn't be voting for them. If you are afraid of your neigbors finding out your political leanings, maybe the problem isn't your neighbors but the candidate you are supporting. If you want to support a specific candidate and everything they believe in, that's just fine, but you should feel comfortable saying as much and, if you feel up for it, laying out the reaso…

Yeah, and good people have nothing to hide! Isn’t that right Alexa?

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

#177

Post by pmiller2 »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #100
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.

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.

You don’t have to be 60+ to have grown up without caller ID. I’m much younger than that, and we certainly didn’t have it for at least most of my childhood.

However, I do not have a landline at home now, and have not in many years.

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

#178

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

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.

I think exit polls (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/...) - which again could be wildly inaccurate especially due to their small size - showed people making over 6 figures were mostly voting for Trump.

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

#179

Post by pmiller2 »

andybak wrote: post #138
mason55 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t all those people leave voicemails?

I guess so but I loathe voicemail more than I loathe the occasional marketing call. It's easier to just answer given the overall chance of it being a waste of time.

Just let your voicemail fill up, if it bothers you that much. If you miss an important call, it will show up as a missed call on your phone.

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

#180

Post by pmiller2 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #53
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?

This wasn't SOP for me when I was growing up. We never got spam calls. Only the occasional wrong number.

+1 to this, although I can say that if I had caller ID, I probably wouldn’t have answered unknown numbers, even when I was growing up.
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