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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

#291

Post by Lazare »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #220
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…

So you're defending the person who is trying to explain why polls got it wrong by using polling data to show that their argument belittling the BLM protests was correct. This is ridiculous on it's own, but also ignores things like how wrong it is to blame the protests for violence often instigated by the police, how dumb it is to trust polling data from the Nixon campaign when we know he was involved in all sorts of…

> show that their argument belittling the BLM protests was correct.

David Shor has not, to my knowledge, ever made an argument belittling the BLM protests. I welcome any links you have that might demonstrate otherwise.

> how wrong it is to blame the protests for violence often instigated by the police

Neither Shor, nor the researcher he linked, Omar Wasow did this.

> how there is evidence that the protests strongly helped the Democrats.

Neither Shor nor Wasow have, to my knowledge, suggested that the protests were net negatives for Democrats. You have constructed a series of strawmen.

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

#292

Post by isabelc »

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

Because Republicans put more money back in the pockets of low wage workers with kids. Most people don't have the luxury of voting along idealistic lines, they vote based on finances out of necessity.

Low-wage workers with children were those most hurt by the Obama's ACA Mandate penalty tax, piled on top of not being able to afford health insurance. Republicans removed that ACA penalty plus doubled the child tax credit. People who afford health insurance are out of touch with this segment of people.

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

#293

Post by Natsu »

newswasboring wrote: post #174
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 p…

> I don't understand what exactly the people restricting speech in this way are trying to achieve.

Hegemony.

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

#294

Post by newacct583 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #229
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…

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…

Yeah, exactly. People who want to scream about how Shor got cancelled have zero interest in actually discussing anything Shor writes.

That said, and to be perfectly clear: Civis should not have fired Shor. It was very bad. (To be fair in the other direction: the guy is a known genius in leftie political circles and my understanding is that he's done very well for himself since termination as an independent consultant.) But really it's the only good example of the "Cancel Culture" paranoia, so right wingers feel the need to trot out the argument every time his name comes up.

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

#296

Post by nl »

macintux wrote: post #90
_AzMoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exit polls were historically used as a method of detecting election fraud, because they've always been very accurate. It's only the last few elections where we've seen such a large disparity in polling and actual results.

Is exit polling no longer working? All of the discussion I’ve seen seems to focus on polling in advance of the election.

The key problem with exit polls (in non-pandemic years) is that they are non-representative until the whole vote is collected and they can be re-weighed.

"exit polls are eventually weighted to match the final results, but that only happens after the election is over. On election night itself, the numbers are reweighted as more data becomes available, but what you’re seeing is still subject to a lot of uncertainty"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/exit-polls-can-be-misle... has a good discussion.

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

#297

Post by _jal »

nl wrote: post #290
nl wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large proportion of Trump voters believe parts of QAnon-pushed conspiracy theories - especially that he is "taking on a Deep State conspiracy", and data indicates some support for that[1][2]. Surely they don't believe the "blood drinking paedophile" part though? It seems outrageous, and yet I know a bunch of people on HN believed PizzaGate back in 2016, so maybe I'm underestimating it. [1] https://www.usato…

The downvotes on this are very aggressive and I'd love to know why. Do people think my summary of the data is wrong or that I'm underestimating the depth of it?

Troll swarm. Enjoy the ride.

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

#298

Post by flowerlad »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #268
flowerlad wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk of Trump voters are from rural areas, and tend to be less (or un-)educated. I don't know what percentage of Trump voters believe QAnon conspiracy theories. But I do believe the bulk of Trump voters are voting against their self interests, because they are gullible. Why else would most Trump voters come from rural areas? If they had legit reasons to support Trump why aren't the voters spread equally among urb…

>Why else would most Trump voters come from rural areas? Because the political and cultural interests of rural areas are different than the interests of urban areas? The economies of rural areas have crumbled. But 50% of the population live in cities and so economic policies that benefit the "majority" of the population will completely miss the issues rural areas face. Trump's support is because he at least pretends…

> pretends to care about them.

And that's why I said:

Not bad people, but gullible people.

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

#299

Post by DeathRay2K »

free_rms wrote: post #253
flowerlad wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk of Trump voters are from rural areas, and tend to be less (or un-)educated. I don't know what percentage of Trump voters believe QAnon conspiracy theories. But I do believe the bulk of Trump voters are voting against their self interests, because they are gullible. Why else would most Trump voters come from rural areas? If they had legit reasons to support Trump why aren't the voters spread equally among urb…

The rejoinder to this line of thinking is generally: "if liberals are so smart, how come they always lose?" Worth a thought.

Because intelligence doesn't translate to popularity?

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

#300

Post by SubiculumCode »

d1zzy wrote: post #241
SubiculumCode wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I should qualify my statement as I get voted down into oblivion. Hn still has higher quality comments and I'd ever seen it slashdot. However those high value comments usually come on particular subjects that lie within the hn community's zone of expertise. However for political topics or for science articles, hn comments usually lack expertise or neutrality. They're all falls into whether hn thinks of itself more as a repository of expertise or a forum for individuals to discuss topics where those individuals have expertise in some topic ie a professional which by and large the community is composed. Please excuse any strange typos I am voice typing this as I walk.
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