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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

#241

Post by d1zzy »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #235
snowwrestler wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly typical of HN today that a topic that is interesting technically and politically neutral (the challenge of accurate polling) is derailed up top with an inaccurate culture war comment (there is no correlation between when a Dem condemned violent protest and whether they won their election). FWIW, Shor’s theory about poll respondents is shared by Robert Cahaly at Trafalgar, but Trafalgar polls missed badly too in…

Agreed. HN is going the way of Slashdot.

Oh wow, I'm so happy I'm not the only one thinking this. I noticed this transition over the past few years on these forums and I even commented about it in the past.

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

#242

Post by gshubert17 »

I've kept a spreadsheet to compare the last polling estimates from fivethirtyeight.com with the actual election results. Although there may be 8 or 9 million votes left to count, the percentages are probably good enough to make some comparisons.

What I saw was an average polling error of 4.9 percentage points. The actual results for Trump were 4.9 points higher than the polls. And the errors were greater in states that had higher percentages of votes for Trump.

For example, North Dakota: The last polls showed 37.9% for Biden and 59.6% for Trump, a 21.7% difference. The latest popular vote tally from CNN shows 31.8% to 65.1%, which are 33.3% apart. That's an 11.6% error, much larger than expected sampling errors of 3-4%.

Shor's explanation was interesting. Whether the explanation is right or not, I can see the effect Shor is describing.

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

#243

Post by free_rms »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #233
PeterisP wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite interesting that I see the same things but opposite conclusions - to me, the "high and low vs the middle" aspect makes sense, but it obviously refers to the Republican party, lead by the interests of the wealthy elite on the backs of votes from lower class rural people and blue collar workers (predominantly the white workers, but as these elections showed, also black working men) against the middle class s…

Interesting. What if you're both right? What if both parties are trying to use HLvM, and nobody represents the middle?

And when you consider that concessions to the lower class by both parties are entirely cultural, linguistic and non-material..

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

#244

Post by mastazi »

This is my personal experience: over the course of my life, I have held both conservative positions and more progressive ones (depending on the topic, and in different periods of my life). I have always been much more willing to discuss openly those positions that I would describe as progressive.

This is despite the fact that over the years I have been living in more than a handful of different countries, each one with different cultural norms. So I think there must be some sort of general tendency, where conservative opinions tend to be disclosed less frequently. I don't know why that is the case, and I would like to hear if anyone has an answer.

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

#245

Post by nl »

vorpalhex wrote: post #132
dragonwriter wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that's actually the rub. Blacks and Hispanics are voting less and less for Democrats, and that is true more for this last election than 2016 Clinton won greater than 90% of the black vote in 2016, as did House Democrats in 2018; there's indications that Biden did a little worse this year. specifically among black men. > the Dems are becoming the party of rich white people. Good verified voter data for 2020…

> Good verified voter data for 2020 will take a while Agreed and my above source is (probably) using exit poll data, which we should be a bit suspicious about. This is early and it's going to take a few weeks to get and unpack data. > in 2016 Trump won 55-39 among whites with over $150K income; And he seems to have taken losses there in 2020 > even if they've lost some ground with some of these groups compared to som…

With the Hispanic vote there are two things happening:

Firstly "Hispanics" is way too diverse a demographic to ever vote as a block. Cuban Hispanics in Miami vote very differently to people of Mexican extraction in California. That in itself will cause some variation election-to-election.

Secondly, and specific to this election: Republicans were very effective in their door-to-door registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in "new voter" Hispanic communities in Florida and Texas. The Democratic party avoided this because of COVID-19 and it cost them badly.

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

joshuamorton wrote: post #164
Damorian wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pollsters say people don't lie to pollsters" is a bad argument. I ended up on some list and lied to every caller out of spite. These people are effectively telemarketers for corrupt propaganda companies interrupting my family at dinner. They don't deserve my honest opinion.

The important thing isn't people lying to pollsters, its people lying to pollsters in a way that's coordinated with a particular demographic or voting block. If 10% of people surveyed, at random, lie to the pollsters and choose the "opposite" candidate out of spite, you'll actually see a sort of reversion to the mean compared to the actual opinions.

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by free_rms »

orangecat wrote: post #239
tshaddox wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A college degree sounds like a laughably low bar for being considered "elite." 27% of American adults have college degrees. In a state like Missouri which is presumably not considered a particularly liberal or Democratic or "elite" state, over 50% of adults have college degrees.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... I see 31% for the US and 28% for Missouri. Regardless, the key point is "almost everyone in your social circle".

Another key point is that 31 and 28 are well short of 51.

What's the plan to get there?

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

#248

Post by smabie »

jojobas wrote: post #236
smabie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anecdotally, knowing some very rich people, they mostly voted for trump in 2016. Pretty much every single one voted for Biden or declined to vote this year. I voted for myself and have been getting a lot of shit for it for some reason.

Very rich people can pretty much be ignored as there are under 1% of them anywhere you look.

You can say that about a lot of interest groups

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

#249

Post by ninkendo »

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…

Polls showed similar results for the presidential race whether they were online or over the phone, so the whole “too shy to admit your politics to a human” argument isn’t a very good one:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-arent-...

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

#250

Post by redisman »

bootlooped wrote: post #146
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.

Weighing of course can add much more uncertainty. What if there is a portion of the country you simply can't reach for some reason, or you hear back from just 2 people? That data would be as good as useless even if you extrapolate with weights.
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