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

#371

Post by ineedasername » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #359

ineedasername wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also rural areas see much less of the impact that government has. They see less infrastructure, they see less of the masses of students that have to be educated, etc. They tend to be pro-small government because they don't have a daily view of the impact government has on daily life. I don't view that as gullible, I view that as a perspective that is incomplete due to geographical circumstances. And I am sure that's…

To be clear, rural areas receive more federal support, but it’s farm subsidies, not visible infrastructure.

Yes, the role of government support in their lives does not take on as much of a visible role.

However I'd also like to comment on a common argument that Blue States/Cities pay for Rural areas. Yes, red states receive a disproportionate amount of federal aid, but that is something everyone benefits from. For example, farm subsidies keep food costs low for everyone in the country. Low income states with a high proportion of people on SNAP & other means-tested government programs mean the social safety net is improving our society as a whole by ensuring fewer people are left behind, which would be an even larger drag on society & the economy. In short, I don't think you can separate funding by state in that way and come to any value judgments based on it because the interwoven nature of our society means we do not stand alone as individual states.

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

#372

Post by irrational » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #350

dragonwriter wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is based on exit polls. Are there some other measurements based on something else, or is it something we now can never know as a result of mail in ballots having no polling and an expected different statistical distribution?

I suggest looking at states like Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, etc. that only do mail in voting and see how they measure what used to be measured by exit polls.

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

#373

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #286

PeterisP wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true, and because of that the lower class systematically vote for parties and policies that harm lower class to benefit the wealthy. Actually, this - class consciousness / false consciousness; the understanding (or lack of it) of the role and interests of the class you're in - was one of key concepts of Marx writings, too bad that this association currently makes many people automatically discard these id…

Marx's problem was that he thought of everything in terms of class. If I'm poor, and I know I'm poor, but I also think about something other than class when making political decisions (no matter what that "something" is), then I have "false consciousness". That is, if I don't think about this totally the way Marx says, I'm stupid. Nice. If you think about your life that one-dimensionally, you're poor in a way that Ma…

[deleted]

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

#374

Post by irrational » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

kjeetgill wrote: post #188

flowerlad wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not bad people, but gullible people. Anyone that believes QAnon conspiracy theories such as Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey are raping and drinking the blood of kidnapped children in pursuit of the “fountain of youth” is gullible.

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

Anecdotal, but every single person I've spoken to who voted for Trump does believe one or more of these conspiracy theories.

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

#375

Post by ineedasername » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

free_rms wrote: post #369

ineedasername wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, these things are not constrained to one side or the other. Though Biden was a moderate, and overall there was more support for moderates in the aggregate than for the more extreme progressive views of Bernie. That could just have come down to a more cynical calculation about "electability" though.

Whomever's downvoting both of us should chill, first off. Second off.. I mean Biden's basically center-right, and he does nothing for any of the values most loudly espoused by the democratic base. He'd have been fired from a FAANG company for the "You're not black" comment, but everyone just agreed to pretend it didn't happen instead because we were stuck with him at that point. So you can't say it's about values ins…

Yeah, I don't get the downvotes either. It's an honest discussion, but too many people upvote/downvote only based on agreement with the point of view. I'm perfectly happy to upvote a comment I disagree with if it is well thought out and improves the discussion in a thoughtful way. Conversely, I'll downvote someone I agree with if their comment is inflammatory.

Anyway, I'm done here, no energy left after going through these threads. I generally agree with your sentiment though, albeit not on everything.

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

#376

Post by newfriend » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #285

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…

> there is no correlation between when a Dem condemned violent protest and whether they won their election You got a source on that? It's clear that democrats lost ground, despite the Republican party's abject failure to control the coronavirus. This should have been the easiest win in world history, and somehow, the Democrats barely escaped with the presidency. There is pretty clearly something to explain here.

> the Democrats barely escaped with the presidency

not yet

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

#377

Post by Kylekramer » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

tchock23 wrote: post #370

One potential solution is to pay people to participate in polls. Pollsters don’t do this because it is prohibitively expensive and cuts into their consulting margins, but it can reduce sampling bias (it can also introduce a bias if not used effectively).

Online pollsters mostly "pay" their respondents, and did just as poorly as phone pollsters this go around.

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

#378

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #219

mattkrause wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota aren’t statistically independent though, so if a poll is wrong in one of them, it’s also likely to be wrong in the others too. Correlated errors are tough!

Maybe it’s semantics, but to me that means something is wrong with the model. It’s not just a matter of an unlikely result being happening some percentage of the time. There is some hidden factor that could have been adjusted for ahead of time.

[deleted]

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

#379

Post by newacct583 » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

klipt wrote: post #363

newacct583 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Civis should not have fired Shor. It was very bad. Why, because you agree with his politics? That doesn't seem like a very objective way to determine who we should or shouldn't cancel.

No, because what he said was a factual analysis and the outrage was about its conclusions. I very much agree with his politics.

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

#380

Post by onecommentman » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 4:14 AM UTC

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…

Not being a fan of push polls, for phone polls/opinion polls, I have a simple response. I let them know my charge for focus group participation is $200/hour, 2 hour minimum, plus expenses.

The person on the other end is getting paid, but I’m the one with the desired information. Are these terms acceptable?

The conversation ends quickly.

Push polls really poisoned the well...