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Personally, I don't follow polls all that closely, but I do keep tabs on them to an extent.
Either way, seems to me that to argue polls are meaningless is to ignore how many there are, who pays for them and why. Also, if you don't think politicians follow them closely, you don't know much about politics. Thing is though, much like the score can be one thing at half time in a sports game, adjustments are made by either side during the half, and the second half can come out with a bit different outcome. That's what polls help to do, allow these politicians to make adjustments just like businesses use focus groups to gauge what is working, what is not and why.
First, let’s examine two current attitudes about polls. One is endemic to journalists, the other to data pundits.
1) Focusing on the leader in polls. Journalists and commentators have been losing their minds over the fact that Donald Trump’s lead has lasted since July. (For an antidote, see a sharp and entertaining takedown at Lawyers, Guns, and Money.) In 2015, one way of coping was to say things like “at this point in 2012, Gingrich led nationally.” Certainly this was good for a cheap laugh. However, focusing only on the leader discards all the information that can be learned by examining lower-ranked candidates. But how to do that? This leads to the second problem.
2) Trying to predict vote share. Analysts often focus on a technical question: what will each candidate’s vote share be? That approach uses tools that are common to econometric analysis, involving the prediction of quantitative parameters. For example, Cohn writes about how far off polls will be, on average, from the exact final outcome in New Hampshire.
If you were truly not worried about Trump; you would not be posting. But you obviously are worried because you are spending almost every minute of the day telling us that it will not happen. What we have seen is that you and your friends said that Trump would not win and here we are; he is the last one standing after the Primary. Trump won one state after another while you said his last win would be his last.
Regardless of what the polls show today; he will catch up and beat Hillary in November. Perhaps you better find a better candidate to go after Trump in 2020? But, if Trump makes good on his promises; 2020 might be a tough year for you!
I too have been worried about Trump's rise, not sure whether more worried or surprised, but plenty of both no doubt.
I still am, so I wonder how you can be so confident that "he will catch up and beat Hillary in November" when all we have is how Trump did in the GOP race among a weak broad band of GOP contenders. That's a good deal different than running against Hillary, right? Trump hasn't had to deal with the fair number of people on the other side of that UUGE political wall that separates Trump types from the rest of Americans, right?
Especially if the polls today show that most people would not support Trump for POTUS, I'm just curious from where your confidence comes, or is it safe to say you are actually just expressing your hopes as all Trump supporters can be expected to do?
She will.
There are just too many Northeast(NY,NJ,Mass) transplants there and minorities for anyone to think Trump will win.
Never will happen. NC will never vote for Hillary Clinton. Case in point. There are far more registered Democrats in NC than Republicans. But turnout for the GOP primary was higher than it was for the DEM primary.
Case in point. Hillary got more votes in 2008 when she lost to Barak Obama in the state than she did in 2016 when she won against the communist, Bernie Sanders. Yet there are a million more people living in NC now than there were in 2008.
Never will happen. NC will never vote for Hillary Clinton. Case in point. There are far more registered Democrats in NC than Republicans. But turnout for the GOP primary was higher than it was for the DEM primary.
Case in point. Hillary got more votes in 2008 when she lost to Barak Obama in the state than she did in 2016 when she won against the communist, Bernie Sanders. Yet there are a million more people living in NC now than there were in 2008.
Very bad for Hillary.
When did Sanders go from socialist to communist? Was that before or after Obama became a communist?
Topic is not about me. But it doesn't mean I can't discuss the polls which is what I'm doing.
Polls for 6 months in the future are meaningless as to what will happen in 6 months. Polls at the beginning of the election season last summer said that JEB would be the nominee.
Again, if you say polls right now are meaningless, why are you in a thread about polls?! You are simply here to cause problems.
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