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

#491

Post by joijoiwejrr » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #401

jimbobimbo wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The votes haven't even been fully counted (NY has barely started with their mail-ins), so the exits aren't weighted yet. There are, so far as I know, no valid takes to be made from current exit data.

I posted this elsewhere in the thread but even without exit polls we can make some reasonably solid conclusions from geographical voting data: https://sweep.thedispatch.com/p/the-sweep-dont-trust-the-exi...

At this point it seems pretty clear that Trump made big gains among Latinos compared to 2016; with other demographics the jury is still out (I think.)

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

#492

Post by newswasboring » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #486

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand what exactly the people restricting speech in this way are trying to achieve. When your ideas can’t be sustained on their merits, your only option is to eliminate people who don’t share your world view. It’s a complete disaster and only breeds fragility.

I will attempt to speak their position, though I disagree with the left on identity politics. They might respond that, as a nation, US slaves and native americans and their descendants were exploited brutally by white English colonists. Over generations, this disparity was solidified by white male laws like jim crow, voter disenfranchisement, and overtly racist and harmful attitudes. Where they go wrong, IMO, is what…

I my view the problem is these objections (though valid at face value) are used to shut down the conversation, not to advance it. I'm not white, does that matter in this instance? Yes, because my lived experience will be very different from yours. But this whole thing is only valuable if I can explain what's missing from your mental model. Lived experience was supposed to give you cover over not knowing racial conditions upfront and give an avenue and tools for us to incorporate more information.

This argument originated to facilitate nuance but is being used to shut it out. That fucking sucks.

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

#493

Post by rayiner » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

joijoiwejrr wrote: post #467

systemvoltage wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got data to back that up?

It's what the exit polls say, although the main lesson we've learned this year is not to trust polls. What's clearer is that Trump made big gains in areas of the country with a high Latino and Hispanic population - e.g. Santa Ana county, CA, which is 77% Hispanic, saw a 13-point swing to Trump, and there are many similar datapoints from across the country. It's pretty clear Trump carried Florida on the strength of th…

Preelection polling was also showing Trump gains among Asians: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-asian-americans-are...

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

#494

Post by ryathal » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #432

illiilliiililil wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has never been such a thing as a politically neutral HN. It's just that there wasn't until recently a userbase to counteract the liberal tech groupthink.

That's more recent, to be honest. When I started reading HN, it was very very libertarian (but mostly non-political). As it's grown bigger, it's started to reflect the demographics of software/data/professional people, with a bias towards the West Coast of the US. That's presumably what you mean by the liberal tech groupthink (note that disliking Trump does not make one a liberal, which is a mistake a lot of conserva…

How long ago was the dominant libertarian scene? I've been reading for about 7 years and it's definitely been heavy liberal with the occasional libertarian belief even back then. Since 2016 it's been full throated liberalism though.

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

#495

Post by rcstank » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

zimablue wrote: post #489

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.

It’s about 40%, look it up there’s polling on it, and that’s apparently probably over representing the more trusting/sane ones. Partly joking on the last part dunno how the populated those polls.

> there's polling on it

Ironic, right? How do we trust any political based polling that got things so very wrong the past two elections?

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

#496

Post by ThePadawan » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

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.

I recently learned that the German polls also rely on random calls - but worse than that, they only use the publicly registered phone numbers, i.e. the ones in the phone book.

That list mostly includes landlines, and biases towards older landlines as well (since IIRC phone book registration switched from opt-out to opt-in at some point).

So the polls strongly overemphasize older voters (because no one else has a landline phone anymore).

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

#497

Post by raxxorrax » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #333

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 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 y…

The story about uneducated rural areas vs educated cities is slowly turning false. Previously you just hadn't access to culture and were cut off from most events, but that changed with a global network to a significant degree. If remote work becomes more established, there is actually little reason to stay in the city, especially if you found a family.

You find derisive comments on rural areas throughout writings of the 19th and 20th century and it will probably still be reiterated for decades.

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

#498

Post by joijoiwejrr » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #478

joijoiwejrr wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden won by razor-thin margins in the swing states, underperformed his polls by 5 to 10 points across the country, and got crushed in several states which pollsters had said were competitive (e.g. Texas). Meanwhile the Democrats lost seats in the House and (probably) failed to take the Senate despite favourable polls and optimistic predictions of a "blue wave". Happiness = Reality - Expectations. Expectations were v…

> Biden [...] underperformed his polls by 5 to 10 points across the country While the votes are still being counted and this may change a little bit, he underperformed the last 538 forecast by 2.7 points at current vote count (not 5 to 10 points), just on the edge of the 80% confidence interval (noted because that's what 538 publishes as its uncertainty measure). Note that in social science, the standard cited uncert…

D'oh. My "5 to 10 points" was off the top of my head based on some numbers I saw being thrown around last week but I didn't bother to double-check. Thanks for keeping me factual.

I wouldn't say "the models are radically wrong" but I think it's still fair to say that last week was disappointing in several ways for the Democratic Party, even with Trump losing.

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

#499

Post by JeremyNT » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

nikitaga wrote: post #427

bananadrama wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My eyes roll faster than context arrives. Deliberately appearing as a troll until the crucial context arrives to reverse the entire meaning is a shit narrative device when discussing serious issues. Save this stuff for stupid memes.

> Deliberately appearing as a troll until the crucial context arrives to reverse the entire meaning is a shit narrative device when discussing serious issues. Save this stuff for stupid memes.

Even with the context it's obviously a troll, because the poster spends the entire first graph building a straw man. The underlying implication is that Republicans are somehow persecuted against by a nameless group who believes all of these negative attributes apply, but no evidence is presented for this.

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

#500

Post by StillBored » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

onecommentman wrote: post #380

dan_quixote wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I did one of the phone polls about 15 years ago, and after about 30 minutes of questions I was really tired of the whole thing. But the last stroke is when instead of asking my opinions about issues/etc they started asking the personal questions (presumably to categorize me race, income/etc) I told them I was done answering questions and refused to answer anything that wasn't something you could conclude by looking at me on the street. Now I just say "no" and hang up.

And thats probably a big problem for them too, I had a few friends in HS who worked as pollsters at the local mall, they actually paid people in gift certificates and the like for the hour they took up. It was all really upfront, "Hi, would you like a $10 gift card for an hour of your time answering questions?". IIRC it was 100% issue questions too, the age/race/etc questions were all later filled out by the pollster from what they saw rather than being questions on the form.

So, yah, I'm guessing its a lot cheaper to run phone polls than pay people in the mall to give out gift cards.