My democratic friends have been wetting their beds for weeks over the latest polls.
The NY Times, CNN, FOX polls are all showing the twice-impeached-four-times-indicted, orange, Putin-puppet tied or in a lead for the oldest horse race in presidential history. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any lower, it’s driving democrats to ever deeper levels of depression and anxiety.
Fear not my democratic friends, like all political polls for the past 20 years, those numbers are “bullshit.”
Remember when Obama looked like he couldn’t win the Democratic nomination let alone the presidency in 2008? Remember when people didn’t bother to vote, because Hilary was absolutely unbeatable in 2016? Remember when they said 2020 was too close to call but Biden won by nearly 8 million votes?
Even in the best of times, pollsters say they are “accurate” when they are within 5 percent of an actual result. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/.
An accurate poll being 5 percent off is more than 7 million votes in a US Presidential election. Biden won 2020 getting 51.3 percent of the vote. 5 percent the other way would have meant a the orange criminal would have actually won. (PS he didn’t fucking win — stop saying it; or prove it in court).
So even when pollsters are completely wrong, they claim they are right.
Why do the polls suck so bad? Here’s a link to a story from Pew Research with lots of issues and problems with polls. I have my own theories…
- Cell phones. When everybody had a landline tied to their home address, pollsters had a much easier time getting accurate random samples based on neighborhoods.
- Caller ID. Before caller ID, people actually answered their phones. They don’t anymore.
- Cell phones and caller ID together. Cell phone numbers are “random.” Area codes mean nothing — people move and keep their old phone number so people in Arizona have Chicago area codes, blah, blah, blah.. With caller ID and tons of spam, nobody answers cell phone calls from pollsters.
Pollsters have turned to different methods to “gather opinions” in person and online, but they haven’t been able to replicate the “accurate polling” they had in the 1980’s-2008.
And that’s sucking in the best of times. We are in the worst of times for polling.
As real journalism dies a slow death of financial starvation, there are fewer and fewer “objective sources” left to pay for polls. Funding to conduct complex political polls — even to reputable journalistic brands — usually comes from political actors with an axe to grind.
The real money in polling is spent by campaigns for the inside data. Remember the expensive data Paul Manafort was selling to Russia. Those are the accurate numbers. The public just gets the leftovers and cheap shit.
There’s a ton of fly by night political pollsters pumping up their stories online until it gets “forced” into the real journalism ecosystems. Junk polls may eventually get weeded out, but they take up a few headlines and make a few news cycles that freak out the fearful on the left.
I don’t think it’s impossible for Trump to win. He could pull another inside straight like 2016 and win in just the right counties to carry just the right states. But these current polls are bullshit. Here’s lots of details on exactly how the latest Super Tuesday polls were way the fuck off.
Polar opposite reactions
I think there is a big difference in how people on each side react to polls. Here I’m using democratic leaning voters to mean people who believe in democracy regardless of party.
I couldn’t find a decent article that includes this new theory I’m about to drop on you, and I didn’t have time to do my own “research.” But I believe it to be true.
Since Hilary lost in 2016, I think those democratic people are paranoid about polls. The Democratic Party is using “scary results” and bad polls to motivate those who still believe in democracy to vote for them. It worked well in 2018, 2020 and 2222. It even worked in the special elections in 2023…
Meanwhile Republicans and other authoritarians (Christian Nationalists, Fascists and the KKK) have to feel like they are the majority. Remember the old “Silent Majority” in the 80’s that was never actually greater than 30 percent of the Republican Party or 20 percent of the total electorate? Those mostly old, white, and christian folks cannot stand the thought of being a “minority”. That’s for poor folks.
They thrive on “rally size”. That feeling of being part of a much bigger group. Giant churches with thousands of people each Sunday. Big parades of pickup trucks with flags. Lots of flags. It makes a 2024 primary in Michigan look like Nuremberg in 1936.
Polls showing Trump leading now – feeds turnout for both groups.
People who still believe in democracy cry themselves to sleep at night and that fear forces them to fill out their mail-in ballots.
Republicans read those headlines and feel “the courage of the mob” and it motivates them to drag more and more people out to vote.
Turn out in 2020 set all time records. I would bet that 2024 will be even bigger. But don’t believe the polls your read before the election. The only poll that counts, is the one taken at the polls (in the actual vote) in November.
Very good points, in my view. Also, regardless of who’s leading in the polls, polls always seem to tighten the closer we get to November. They tighten to the point where you don’t know who the hell’s going to win, on election day. So I would agree that it’s best to take all polling with a large grain of salt.
We should all ignore them until the “news” stops talking about them. Waste of time.
Thank you, a million times over, Kieran, for making the obvious point that the media have been suckered into the world Trump is trying to create. Where rational thought and hard facts are Trumped (pun intended) by boisterous bullying and sham challenge to any intact authority. I have even deserted my formerly go-to sources, the NYT and WaPo. I follow Heather Cox Richardson’s useful work, and count on the likes of you to create outrage at those who would lead us into perdition.
Wow, you sounded so smart until you started counting on the “likes of” me. But I agree with going to Heather Cox Richardson for real political reporting with an evidence-driven perspective. Hang in there. Let’s hope this fascist scare will soon pass.
Wonderful piece, Kieran., I’ve questioned “polls” for a while now and you’ve given me reasons to understand why. “People who still believe in democracy cry themselves to sleep at night.” If they read this, they’ll sleep a little better. I’m scrunching my anxious ass down for a coming year of Biden versus Trump, left versus right lunacy. Insight like this will make a difference.
2024 politics sucks, but political reporting is at an all-time low. Underfunded, terrible economic incentives, and corporate control have overwhelmed the goals of accurate and fair reporting. Thanks for reading.
Corporate control. Care to elaborate?
Nearly all major TV and newspapers are owned by HUGE corporations. Including local TV stations. The few that are not are even more dependent on corporate advertising than they were 20 years ago.
Your added image of a poll on a pile I believe is perfectly accurate.
Polls have not been relevant in years IMO. They should really find a better method or just quit guessing. Also, god help us if that monster Trump wins and turns this once great nations to DST divided states of Trumponia
-Butterpants
Just a huge waste of time and energy.