The Real reason why The Polls are lying

[jeremyemilio]

There's a margin of error, that could go either way in any way in any particular election. But that doesn't rationally justify just rejecting information that you don't like, which is what we're seeing on the right.

The poll numbers were way outside of the margin of error. Races that had Biden up by 7 or 8 points in the polls are within a percentage point.

The funny thing is that last time around the polls weren't nearly as off as people think they were. Most poll averages were within the margin of error. It just happened that Trump ran the table and won a few states by a fraction of a percentage point and picked up the electoral collage.

This time around it's the flip. It looks like Biden is going to win, and that's going to make it look like the pollsters are vindicated. But the reality is that many of them were way off the mark. It just happened that Biden is squeaking out what he needs by extremely small margins.

When it comes to "just rejecting information that you don't like" I'd look no further than the twitter storm attacking Real Clear Politics for their final aggregate numbers because they had the audacity to give weight to polls that leaned toward Trump, unlike Nate Silver who has a formula that gives very little weight to these Republican leaning polls. Except the Real Clear Politics average did much, much better than Silver's average (and even the Real Clear Politics Averages had a Biden lean).

 

[Hadron90]

The real reason the polls once again got it wrong is most likely much less sinister and can be explained simply by the fact that Trump supporters don’t answer polls nearly as much as Democrats, and while the polls did try to account for this, they once again under called that particular impact.

Sure, but for months every time anyone suggested the "shy Trump voter" theory, the pollsters laughed them off and said there is evidence that is the case.

 

[James Bomb]

k so you're ironically calling me a moron, go it

ESAL

Yeah, if you think that Trump is a legit "candidate of peace" then you should go ahead and invest in some Madoff securities or Florida swampland instead of posting here.

 

[Grenz]

Sure, but for months every time anyone suggested the "shy Trump voter" theory, the pollsters laughed them off and said there is evidence that is the case.

I'm assuming you meant 'no evidence'.

I think they inadvertently admitted it when they realized they had to weigh more heavily against education level in their sample. But anyway, now it looks more and more like the result will fall within the margin of error anyway. We'll know soon enough hopefully.

 

[K1levelgrappler]

Nate Silver should be forced do a naked walk of shame ala game of thrones while everyone throws rocks and mud at him

 

[Archie Goodwin]

"Regardless of who wins the presidential election, there was no blue wave, no overwhelming anti-Trump surge and the current president was not rejected as a racist bigot. 'The media were wrong because it was a mixture of wishful thinking and propaganda designed to influence the result. The people they most influenced were themselves and their leftist allies.'"

 

[Scerpi]

Cliffs:

-Polls are fake and skewered in Biden's favor in order to obtain funding.
-If Biden looks like he's dominating, people think their funding is actually going towards something that is worth value
-The funding mainly goes to advertising which is created by the same companies that make the fake polls.
-In short, The Polls tricked democrats into giving them money

Democrats flushed an unreal amount of money in Texas with zero results.

 

[Seano]

Democrats flushed an unreal amount of money in Texas with zero results.

Maine Senate race too. What a waste of money.

 

[Ezekiel 25:17]

Cliffs:

-Polls are fake and skewered in Biden's favor in order to obtain funding.
-If Biden looks like he's dominating, people think their funding is actually going towards something that is worth value
-The funding mainly goes to advertising which is created by the same companies that make the fake polls.
-In short, The Polls tricked democrats into giving them money

I have this crazy theory that without the dated electoral college system, if left to popular vote, the Republicans would never win the presidency ever again.

 

[Don the grifter]

Haven't looked through this thread but, the polls were drastically wrong. Out of the ones I've seen, the only one that didn't shit the bed was Trafalgar and, if I'm not mistaken, didn't hack-organizations like 538 take it off their page a few days before the election? Frankly, after this pathetic showing, if people still take these organizations seriously they're rubes. The pollsters are either incompetent or actively trying to sway the election with their outlandish predictions.

 

[Jack V Savage]

The poll numbers were way outside of the margin of error. Races that had Biden up by 7 or 8 points in the polls are within a percentage point.

Still shaking out. But that's a distraction from the point, which is about process and reasoning. To try to deactivate your tribalism, think of it in non-political terms. Say I'm throwing an outdoor party tomorrow, and the TV meteorologist says that there's a 95% chance that the temperature will be between 30 and 40 degrees F. If I say, "no, that's too cold. That would be bad. It's probably one of my enemies trying to ruin the party," I would be disconnected from reality, even if it turned out that it was 45 degrees. Without exaggeration, that kind of thinking is totally normal on the right today, and there's a whole media complex designed to feed it. That's *the* master problem in American politics that prevents us from rationally addressing any of our other issues.

 

[Archie Goodwin]

I have this crazy theory that without the dated electoral college system, if left to popular vote, the Republicans would never win the presidency ever again.

Campaigning is based on the electoral college system. If presidential elections were determined by popular vote, campaigning would be different to adjust accordingly.

 

[jeremyemilio]

Still shaking out. But that's a distraction from the point, which is about process and reasoning. To try to deactivate your tribalism, think of it in non-political terms. Say I'm throwing an outdoor party tomorrow, and the TV meteorologist says that there's a 95% chance that the temperature will be between 30 and 40 degrees F. If I say, "no, that's too cold. That would be bad. It's probably one of my enemies trying to ruin the party," I would be disconnected from reality, even if it turned out that it was 45 degrees. Without exaggeration, that kind of thinking is totally normal on the right today, and there's a whole media complex designed to feed it. That's *the* master problem in American politics that prevents us from rationally addressing any of our other issues.

I know you don't believe it, but I'm not speaking from a position of tribalism. I'm pointing out that there were other polls that had the race much closer and the left were, absolutely and undeniably, doing exactly what you're critiquing in the right. When people saw a poll that leaned more toward Trump, it was simply dismissed as propaganda. RCP's average turned out to be a lot closer to reality than Nate Silver's precisely because RCP didn't do that and Nate did.

 

[Gunny]

Campaigning is based on the electoral college system. If presidential elections were determined by popular vote, campaigning would be different to adjust accordingly.

Correct, every Democrat who blubbers about the EC would be hating life when, all of a sudden, they have to defend turf in NYC, Boston, San Fran, LA, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, etc. As is they can rack up popular votes in those giant markets uncontested as there’s essentially no presidential campaigning goin on there. To turn the tables on the GOP, the Dems would have to do the same in the Peoria, Fort Wayne, Billings of the country. There are many more of this latter type of market, they are far more spread out and a candidate gets less bang for his buck on the time/money spent there.