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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

#331

Post by boomboomsubban »

darawk wrote: post #288
boomboomsubban wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. He's not belittling them. He's supporting them and their cause, and offering course corrective advice so that they are better able to achieve their stated goals. > This is ridiculous on it's own, but also ignores things like how wrong it is to blam…

>Violence was instigated on both sides, but regardless of what the underlying reality was, the perception was that leftists were responsible for much of the violence, and that is problematic electorally.

Literally "it doesn't matter who was responsible for the violence, the left get blamed for it so it's their fault." Fuck that. The police are very often responsible for the violence, and you should not stop protesting because they can attack you and make you look bad. Suggesting they should stop is belittling their protest.

>You may not like the fact that you have to think about the median Oklahoman voter, but the reality is that that voter is much more important than the median say, NYC voter

You completely missed the point of what was said. Maybe in Oklahoma this was a net negative, but countrywide including many swing states it was essential.

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

#332

Post by ianai »

dan_quixote wrote: post #322
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…

Funny, I realized that I've never thought about how I react to polls until reading your comment. I flat out refuse to answer polls regardless of who is asking. I refuse to leave any public artifacts of my political feelings (signs, bumper stickers, facebook comments, etc). The reason is exactly as you describe - I have nothing to gain and potentially something to lose. I am a problem for pollsters and there's no reas…

But, given the apparent popularity of social media you shouldn’t assume you’re representative either. I’m sure there are people like you - but we would be helped with a way to measure how many there are in polls. Guessing here, I’d imagine it’s related to income/age/sex/education/etc and possibly distinct subsets of those categories. Who knows though.

I’m increasingly of the opinion that opinion polling needs to be closely reconsidered for informing policy. People conflate polls with votes and something above 50% is seen as having something like a mandate. But it seems like a very immature field or being used for way more than it’s worth.

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

#333

Post by adventured »

flowerlad wrote: post #192
kjeetgill wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the bulk of voters for Trump believe one of these things? He won a considerable number of votes.

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 bulk of Trump voters are from rural areas, and tend to be less (or un-)educated.

You're of course ignoring even worse problems on the Democrat side.

The lowest education rates and highest drop-out rates in the US are not in rural areas, they're almost exclusively in the inner cities where Democrats tend to completely dominate the vote.

Rural students at 87% are more likely to graduate from high school in four years than the national average at 83%.

The graduation rate by comparison in Washington DC public schools is typically around 65%-70%. Shall I list all the major blue cities by graduation rates, or is that not necessary because everyone already knows what the outcomes actually look like?

The persistent low education and high drop-out rate problems in so many major Democrat dominated cities (eg: Philly, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland, Milwaukee, DC, etc.) is terrifying as an American. They're rates that low-development nations might be ashamed of.

The left pretends none of that exists when it's inconvenient, like when making blanket statements about Republican voter education levels.

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

#334

Post by mmcgaha »

Everyone knows Republicans are racist homophobic xenophobic bigoted nazis. Why would they want to admit that to some random over the phone?

The rhetoric that we are using to describe the other party is not necessarily helping our cause in the long run. First it is pushing folks with legitimate disagreement away from public discourse. Second it is creating a good-guy/bad-guy scenario that is the equivalent of tribalism. At this point I can pick between a political talk show or professional wrestling and get about the same quality of content.

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

#335

Post by dragonwriter »

jimbobimbo wrote: post #329
systemvoltage wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got data to back that up?

https://www.essence.com/news/politics/55-percent-white-women...

This is based on exit polls.

Exit polls only interview people who vote in person, which may be generally be useful, but in this election are an enormously systematically biased slice of the electorate.

You really can't base any generalizations beyond the in-person voting segment based on them.

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

#336

Post by ineedasername »

nl wrote: post #302
_jal wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Troll swarm. Enjoy the ride.

Thanks. The good thing about having been on HN for a while is that I don't really need to care about troll voting.

Also there's often a trend I've noticed in some of my own down voted comments that an initial negative turns positive as curious readers want to see what was so bad, realize it was nothing, and upvote.

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

#337

Post by Retric »

jeffbee wrote: post #321
Retric wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that’s really not what the statistics show. Republicans gain a majority of support from high school graduates, individuals with some college experience, and college graduates. People without a high school degree or with a post graduate degree favor Democrats. An individual’s likelihood of being a Democrat decreases with every additional dollar he or she earns. Democrats have a huge advantage (63 percent) with…

None of those statements is consistent with the Pew Research data on partisan identification among the electorate. E.g. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v58Nt6SW832ZUq7xLI6N... for 2019 demographic breakdowns.

Partisan identification is very different from voting. That has 29% of the population Republican and 34% independent which is wildly outside how people actually vote.

A large slice of voters self identify as independent, but their voting habits don’t match that self identification. It’s that classic independent streak myth so popular among Americans.

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

#338

Post by ineedasername »

free_rms wrote: post #312
DeathRay2K wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because intelligence doesn't translate to popularity?

If we actually care about outcomes, then maybe we should use some of that vaunted intelligence to think about winning more. "You're dumb and racist, so vote for us" is apparently not a winning message. And spending hundreds of millions on the same dumb media consulting firms that lose again and again, zero positive message besides "it's us or trump".. I could go on for days about how "smart" the democratic politician…

Pursuit of winning at the cost of values isn't a great path. We certainly see it in a bipartisan selection of politicians, but there's no reason intelligence should win out any more of less to propaganda or misinformation, regardless of which party it comes from, especially because it tends to be a lot easier to convince even inteligent people of an appealing lie than an ugly truth, again regardless of party affiliation.

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

#339

Post by bArray »

mmcgaha wrote: post #334

Everyone knows Republicans are racist homophobic xenophobic bigoted nazis. Why would they want to admit that to some random over the phone? The rhetoric that we are using to describe the other party is not necessarily helping our cause in the long run. First it is pushing folks with legitimate disagreement away from public discourse. Second it is creating a good-guy/bad-guy scenario that is the equivalent of tribalis…

You should really edit your comment's first paragraph to make it clear that it's not your opinion.

I agree that there is currently an atmosphere where people don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about their political leanings among strangers.

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

#340

Post by [deleted] »

nl wrote: post #208
kjeetgill wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the bulk of voters for Trump believe one of these things? He won a considerable number of votes.

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…

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