Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I will say this: back in 2016, I cautioned about believing polls.
Why? The landscape was changing.
Used to be, everyone had a landline. Polling was easy then: call people on said landlines.
Then, beginning in 2006 or so, cell phones (thanks to the iPhone) started to gain ascendancy. People began to cut ties to landlines (I just did so a few months ago).
Plus, the rise of 'internet polling'.
Anyway, even the Gallop pollsters (Mr. Gallop began such polling; back in his day, his people did polling of people walking down the street) bowed out of the 2016 Presidential race, citing an inability to accurately poll.
The pollsters had to learn. They did rather poorly in 2016 (although not as badly as some claim), and did much better in 2018.
Polling is a statistical science, as I well know from taking a damned course in such in 1976 or so. It is very scientific. They don't just call people blindly.
Since the major pollsters did better in 2018 than 2016, I assume they will be better in 2020.
I do not accept those polls that are reliant on 'internet' polls. You know: you click on a website, and a window pops up that asks you to chose between Trump and Biden.
The media needs a horse race to bring up their ratings. ...
^^^BiNNNNNNNNNgOOOOOOOOO!!!!^^^
Without “polls” during these election cycles, the mainstream media would melt away like the Wicked Witch o’ da West in the Wizard of Oz ...
Frankly, if polls ever started showing Trump in a definite lead, that’s when I’d start sweating - I have that little faith in and that much contempt for “polls.”
Nearly every pollster blew it in 2016, when it came to predicting who will become President (popular vote projections are meaningless).
If they blow it again, & Trump wins again, will you continue to quote the polls, in future political posts?
If so, how many times must they blow it for you to say "enough is enough, they are inept"?
To be exact, polls are never "wrong". A poll merely questions a certain number of people meeting certain criteria (likely voters, or registered voters, etc) and then reports how those people answered.
If a pollster reports that out of 3000 people in his poll, Clinton beat Trump 52% - 48%, presumably that was true. The error is in extrapolating from those 3000 respondents to the 130,000,000 voters in the general election. No pollster can guarantee that the results of his poll will accurately predict the outcome of the election.
Statisticians speak in terms of confidence intervals. You could have high confidence, say 90%, that the final result will be within some wide range of outcomes, or you could have a very narrow range with low confidence. But you never have 100% confidence of anything.
That said, the more polls that favor Biden, the higher the level of confidence that he will win. If the confidence level is 80%, that still leaves a 20% of Trump winning, so again, you could never say that the poll or the statistical prediction, was wrong.
The polls never showed Trump with huge leads in 2016 swing state polls.
Same thing this time
In 2016 the pollsters had too many college grads, not enough rural voters, and not enough blue collar people. Many of the pollsters have fixed that. Wherever the polls end up on Nov. 2 I believe they will be more accurate this time.
Trumps campaign seems to like polls....theyre paying pollsters millions for internal polling
Did a lot better job than Hillary. I remember after the election Brit Hume saying the Trump people were asking the week before the election, "Why are you still talking about North Carolina?" The Trump people knew they had it won. And Guliani was saying they felt good about Pennsylvania and Michigan and had a chance in Wisconsin. Media laughed at him. Hillary campaigned once in Michigan and never in Wisconsin. Democrats were spending money in Texas and Georgia.
I will say this: back in 2016, I cautioned about believing polls.
Why? The landscape was changing.
Used to be, everyone had a landline. Polling was easy then: call people on said landlines.
Then, beginning in 2006 or so, cell phones (thanks to the iPhone) started to gain ascendancy. People began to cut ties to landlines (I just did so a few months ago).
Plus, the rise of 'internet polling'.
Anyway, even the Gallop pollsters (Mr. Gallop began such polling; back in his day, his people did polling of people walking down the street) bowed out of the 2016 Presidential race, citing an inability to accurately poll.
The pollsters had to learn. They did rather poorly in 2016 (although not as badly as some claim), and did much better in 2018.
Polling is a statistical science, as I well know from taking a damned course in such in 1976 or so. It is very scientific. They don't just call people blindly.
Since the major pollsters did better in 2018 than 2016, I assume they will be better in 2020.
I do not accept those polls that are reliant on 'internet' polls. You know: you click on a website, and a window pops up that asks you to chose between Trump and Biden.
With caller ID, their chance of getting a reliable sample is much smaller. You have to assume those who refused to answer are just like the ones who do, when the fact of their not answering indicates a difference.
In 2016 the pollsters had too many college grads, not enough rural voters, and not enough blue collar people. Many of the pollsters have fixed that.
You are correct that rural voters were not being polled in the numbers needed to get a accurate data in 2016.
However, you are wrong that they have fixed that issue. In fact, it's likely worse this election than it was in 2016.
One of the main reasons the polling is so skewed is because the rural voters are hard to get accurate data on. These rural working class voters just don't want to participate in polling.
Rural working class are breaking heavily towards Trump nationally, but especially in the rust belt states, which of course are the most critical states in the election.
That in a nutshell is why the polling is so inaccurate right now.
I told everyone in 2016 on here repeatedly that the election was going to be close, but the dems refused to believe me.
I'm telling everyone again this year, the election is going to be close, with a possible slight edge for President Trump.
Nearly every pollster blew it in 2016, when it came to predicting who will become President (popular vote projections are meaningless).
If they blow it again, & Trump wins again, will you continue to quote the polls, in future political posts?
If so, how many times must they blow it for you to say "enough is enough, they are inept"?
How do you know the poll will always favor Trump just because it did in 2016? Clinton ran as an incumbent on her policies with Obama.
It's possible the polls might be understating Biden's lead.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
