Elections Clinton vs. Trump Polls thread, v2

[Sycho Sid]

No evidence? I'm pretty sure Trump killed it in the primaries, even when polling behind other Republicans.

Trump was almost always polling ahead. He never greatly outperformed his poll numbers.

 

[FootstompShonie]

A reddit user created a badly faked poll and Trump supporters still spammed it as proof of him winning. Some are still posting it even after he came out and admitted what he did.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrum...posted_an_obviously_fake_poll_on_rthe_donald/

What's even funnier is actual "journalists" who have Trump boners tweeted it out saying this was the only realistic poll and looked completely retarded.



It also shows none of the Trumpets actually believe polls don't matter, because the second one showed what they believed (even though it was obviously fake) they popped a stiffy and ate it up, started spreading it everywhere. Suddenly polls were legit I guess.

 

[M3t4tr0n]

What's even funnier is actual "journalists" who have Trump boners tweeted it out saying this was the only realistic poll and looked completely retarded.



It also shows none of the Trumpets actually believe polls don't matter, because the second one showed what they believed (even though it was obviously fake) they popped a stiffy and ate it up, started spreading it everywhere. Suddenly polls were legit I guess.

Here's the real poll

 

[Space]

Trump gains ground against Clinton, tracking poll finds

http://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...und-against-clinton-1471817853-htmlstory.html

Donald Trump has gained ground against Hillary Clinton, according to the latest findings from the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Timesnational tracking poll of the presidential race.

The uptick for Trump follows a broad-based decline in early August and suggests a possible narrowing of the race.

Trump has regained some of ground he lost after the Democratic National Convention in late July, when he repeatedly criticized the Muslim American parents of a dead U.S. Army captain, and appeared to urge Russia to hack Clinton’s email.

As of Sunday, the tracking poll showed Trump at 45% and Clinton at 43%, within the survey’s margin of error. Those results are far closer than most other polls, which use different methodology and almost uniformly show Clinton ahead by several points.

 

[lilianjie]

Polls don't mean shit and neither does your opinion.

I remember the UK brexit polls, the remain were winning in practically ALL polls right the way through until the moment that counted and leave won.

 

[Irenaeus]

I remember the UK brexit polls, the remain were winning in practically ALL polls right the way through until the moment that counted and leave won.

I'm afraid you misremember. The individual polls were all over the place, and the aggregate numbers were close to dead even, well within the margin of error of the actual result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opini...dom_European_Union_membership_referendum#2016

It should also be noted that UK polling is significantly worse than US presidential polling, with both methodological problems, and a far worse track record. Add a unique vote such as the EU referendum, and it adds a lot of uncertainity that isn't there in more usual races. Even so, the final poll aggregate numbers were close as hell, and leave won by less than two percent.

TL;DR Even with low-quality polls describing a situation with little precedent, Brexit isn't an example of polls failing, but of them working rather well.

 

[Lead]

Trump gains ground against Clinton, tracking poll finds

http://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...und-against-clinton-1471817853-htmlstory.html

Donald Trump has gained ground against Hillary Clinton, according to the latest findings from the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Timesnational tracking poll of the presidential race.

The uptick for Trump follows a broad-based decline in early August and suggests a possible narrowing of the race.

Trump has regained some of ground he lost after the Democratic National Convention in late July, when he repeatedly criticized the Muslim American parents of a dead U.S. Army captain, and appeared to urge Russia to hack Clinton’s email.

As of Sunday, the tracking poll showed Trump at 45% and Clinton at 43%, within the survey’s margin of error. Those results are far closer than most other polls, which use different methodology and almost uniformly show Clinton ahead by several points.

Stop cherry picking polls. This poll has always been significant more to the right than all other pollsters. It's not an issue of using it as long as you factor it in with the other polling going on which shows Clinton averaging +5.

This is exactly why this thread was made. People would make threads with one poll they liked the numbers for and then would post it as clear evidence for their claims. It's dishonest and misleading. You have to see all the data to get a clear picture where the race currently is

 

[Lead]

I'm afraid you misremember. The individual polls were all over the place, and the aggregate numbers were close to dead even, well within the margin of error of the actual result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opini...dom_European_Union_membership_referendum#2016

It should also be noted that UK polling is significantly worse than US presidential polling, with both methodological problems, and a far worse track record. Add a unique vote such as the EU referendum, and it adds a lot of uncertainity that isn't there in more usual races. Even so, the final poll aggregate numbers were close as hell, and leave won by less than two percent.

TL;DR Even with low-quality polls describing a situation with little precedent, Brexit isn't an example of polls failing, but of them working rather well.

It's disheartening whenever people misremember polling this recent in memory for their arguments that polling doesn't work. I mean, I can somewhat accept a person who buys into the Reagan being down forever in the polls to carter until the very end fairy tail cause it was a long time ago (it went back and forth once fall began) but I continually see people say this about brexit. I just don't get it.

Also, you have to consider even with the margin or error, the larger number of undecideds which could've made the swing even larger and yet it still ended up being very accurate.

 

[Lead]

Polls don't mean shit and neither does your opinion.

I remember the UK brexit polls, the remain were winning in practically ALL polls right the way through until the moment that counted and leave won.

We could research this. Oh, you don't have time to look up and gather individual polls to find out what the average polling data was for Brexit? That's too taxing on your time? I agree. If only there were such a way to find all the polls gathered in one place and it taking possibly 1 or even 2 minutes to find out if you claims are right.

Well then, lets try google maybe? Worth a shot, right?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=brexit+polls
Oh, look. Bloomberg has a Brexit poll tracker. Lets see were that was at right before Brexit
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-brexit-watch/
WHAT! 46 remian/44 leave/9 undecided?! But those are really close results when you consider margin of error. Lets try another source.
Ah, the economist has one too. Surely it will show how the polls were vastly wrong and favoring the wrong result
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/britain-s-eu-referendum
Mother fucker. 44/44 right before the vote with 9% undecided. It's almost like the polls actually reflected how close and uncertain this vote was going to be?

Nah, fuck polling. If I just change my memory of what they showed, they can be easily discredited.

EDIT- I was an ass in this post. I am attacking the point of polling not being useful rather than yourselves.

 

[Lead]

No doubt the polls are never fudged.

The polls had Reagan winning before election night. The margin was higher but he was up on Carter beforehand. A likely cause of the wider margin was being unable to factor in the result that Anderson was going to have on the race. Unlike Johnson in 2012, Anderson was polling in the 20's early on as a third party and still took 7% of the vote. It's possible Johnson could to looking at the numbers but it's uncertain who that affects more between Clinton and Trump. It's also hard to compare an incumbent reelection year to one where both candidates are non-incumbents. Not a great example.

 

[lilianjie]

I'm afraid you misremember. The individual polls were all over the place, and the aggregate numbers were close to dead even, well within the margin of error of the actual result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opini...dom_European_Union_membership_referendum#2016

It should also be noted that UK polling is significantly worse than US presidential polling, with both methodological problems, and a far worse track record. Add a unique vote such as the EU referendum, and it adds a lot of uncertainity that isn't there in more usual races. Even so, the final poll aggregate numbers were close as hell, and leave won by less than two percent.

TL;DR Even with low-quality polls describing a situation with little precedent, Brexit isn't an example of polls failing, but of them working rather well.

Sorry, then I stand corrected.

 

[TheComebackKid]

Lead Salad is really passionate about polling

 

[Lead]

Lead Salad is really passionate about polling

Yea. I might reply ban myself from this thread cause I usually regret how I act after a couple posts.

It's one of the few things in politics you can come close to objectivity with. Obviously there are a ton of shitty polls with questions asked different ways, bad methodologies, etc but for general races like these, they are pretty good indicators and it becomes annoying to see constant ignorance that they are bad indicators.

It's one thing to have threads arguing ideologies and ideas that are fairly subjective and opinionated but then it becomes silly to see the same amount of disagreement over something way more straight forward and scientific in nature.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Stop cherry picking polls. This poll has always been significant more to the right than all other pollsters. It's not an issue of using it as long as you factor it in with the other polling going on which shows Clinton averaging +5.

This is exactly why this thread was made. People would make threads with one poll they liked the numbers for and then would post it as clear evidence for their claims. It's dishonest and misleading. You have to see all the data to get a clear picture where the race currently is

 

[Jack V Savage]

Yea. I might reply ban myself from this thread cause I usually regret how I act after a couple posts.

It's one of the few things in politics you can come close to objectivity with. Obviously there are a ton of shitty polls with questions asked different ways, bad methodologies, etc but for general races like these, they are pretty good indicators and it becomes annoying to see constant ignorance that they are bad indicators.

It's one thing to have threads arguing ideologies and ideas that are fairly subjective and opinionated but then it becomes silly to see the same amount of disagreement over something way more straight forward and scientific in nature.

Honestly, there are a lot more objective answers on policy-related issues than I think you realize and than most want to admit. Discussions on the ACA, for example, often boil down to "the numbers say X" vs. "there's some conspiracy so you can't trust the numbers" or "my friend's uncle told me Y, which goes against your precious 'statistics.'" Almost all economic-policy threads are similar. All the stuff on debt. Etc.

 

[Lead]

Honestly, there are a lot more objective answers on policy-related issues than I think you realize and than most want to admit. Discussions on the ACA, for example, often boil down to "the numbers say X" vs. "there's some conspiracy so you can't trust the numbers" or "my friend's uncle told me Y, which goes against your precious 'statistics.'" Almost all economic-policy threads are similar. All the stuff on debt. Etc.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say policy is purely about the feels. It's just the statistics often can be turned the way you want them too and manipulated if you try hard enough. There is always spin with that stuff which is fine because the debate usually shows what is spin and what is closer to the truth.

My point was an election poll of who will win has been established for a very long time and there isn't really room to spin it unless you either cherry pick or pick a far less reliable polling question. It's much easier to pin down the truth with these things.

 

[Fawlty]

Does anybody know why the LA Times/USC poll is even allowed with the others? I don't know enough about the science of polling obviously, but that one seems absurd.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say policy is purely about the feels. It's just the statistics often can be turned the way you want them too and manipulated if you try hard enough. There is always spin with that stuff which is fine because the debate usually shows what is spin and what is closer to the truth.

My point was an election poll of who will win has been established for a very long time and there isn't really room to spin it unless you either cherry pick or pick a far less reliable polling question. It's much easier to pin down the truth with these things.

I got you, but what I'm saying is that you think that because you know a bit about polls. It's not like people don't *try* to spin polls or do the things you're talking about; it's that *you* see through it when they do, and the serious analysts who you're aware of don't take those kinds of arguments seriously. The exact same thing applies to other policy issues. People make the same shitty arguments against solid methods that they do in polls. To take a real example, someone said that all the doctors he knew on Facebook hated the ACA so that trumped any metrics showing its success. That's exactly the same argument as "all the signs I see are for X, so the polling showing X is losing must be flawed." Etc.

Does anybody know why the LA Times/USC poll is even allowed with the others? I don't know enough about the science of polling obviously, but that one seems absurd.

Silver says they're fine, but they have like a 5-point GOP lean. Too lazy to look it up now, but you can find what I'm talking about.

 

[Lead]

I got you, but what I'm saying is that you think that because you know a bit about polls. It's not like people don't *try* to spin polls or do the things you're talking about; it's that *you* see through it when they do, and the serious analysts who you're aware of don't take those kinds of arguments seriously. The exact same thing applies to other policy issues. People make the same shitty arguments against solid methods that they do in polls. To take a real example, someone said that all the doctors he knew on Facebook hated the ACA so that trumped any metrics showing its success. That's exactly the same argument as "all the signs I see are for X, so the polling showing X is losing must be flawed." Etc.

Gotcha

Silver says they're fine, but they have like a 5-point GOP lean. Too lazy to look it up now, but you can find what I'm talking about.

He said 5+ on his podcast. I'm not sure if he has it in any of his articles. On his pollster ratings, they actually don't have LA Times that far from the mean. It's only like 0.6+ GOP so I'm guessing they update accordingly after an election cycle maybe cause it's very clear the +5 is more likely. RCP always has that LA Times poll sticking out like a sore thumb, more so than Rasmussen.

 

[Lead]

Does anybody know why the LA Times/USC poll is even allowed with the others? I don't know enough about the science of polling obviously, but that one seems absurd.

There's actually a full article on it I just found.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-leave-the-la-times-poll-alone/

This part kinda sums up the difference in methodology from the others

The poll does some other things differently also, some of which I like. For instance, it allows people to assign themselves a probability of voting for either candidate instead of saying they’re 100 percent sure. And the poll surveys the same panel of roughly 3,000 people over and over instead of recruiting new respondents. That creates a more stable baseline and can therefore be a good way to detect trends in voter preferences, although it also means that if the panel happened to be more Trump-leaning or Clinton-leaning than the population as a whole, you’d be stuck with it for the rest of the year.