Replies to post #474971 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[janice shell]

Both the Dems and the Republicans are concerned about RFK Jr.

[arizona1]

Just for you dear.

The Problems with Polling


Measuring polling probabilities in the modern age.

When a prediction methodology becomes obsolete, should society keep relying on it, like it was something more than a roll of the dice?

Why polling is so often wrong

by James Rosen, bostonglobe.com — April 3, 2024
If political pollsters were physicians, large numbers of them would be getting hauled before medical disciplinary boards for misdiagnosing their patients.

Many pollsters performed poorly in the last three national elections. They exaggerated Democratic support in the 2016 and 2020 presidential races and inflated Republican strength in the 2022 congressional midterms. Yet in the midst of another tight White House two seasons out from the election, they are again making confident, if changing, predictions about the outcome.

Even the 2022 debacle, when the widely forecast “red tsunami” in the House of Representatives became a trickle of actual Republican gains, hasn’t dented pollsters’ confidence — or news outlets’ and voters’ appetite for their suspect wares.

Now, with Joe Biden and Donald Trump locked in a close rematch, near-daily reports on its status are causing political whiplash.
[...]

The Problem With Polls
by Daniel Macy, pbs.org — September 12, 2022
[...]

“There’s a dirty little secret that we pollsters need to own up to,” wrote polling expert David Hill, president of Hill Research Consultants and a 2020 fellow at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Political Future, in The Washington Post in 2020. “People don’t talk to us anymore, and it’s making polling less reliable.”
[...]

“There’s a whole class of Americans who don’t answer calls with caller IDs that they don’t know,” Hill said. “If we’re honest … this is all a complete mess today because we can’t really have a true random sample anymore because we can’t get a random sample or anything close to that to cooperate.”
[...]

The fast-escalating cost of telephone surveying has led to the proliferation of many non-probability methods of polling, Carvalho said, describing them as “cheaper but less dependable.”
[...]

The AP, and Marist [polls], recognize that a plurality of American adults do not have a landline. Polls that are “conducted by telephone must include people interviewed on their cellphones,” according to the Stylebook. “Those that only include landline interviews have no chance of reaching the more than half of American adults who have only a mobile phone.”
[...]

The science of polling depends on taking a true random sample of the population of concern.

Polls lacking random sampling will be biased, slanted, or just flat wrong (as demonstrated recently with the widely predicted “red tsunami” — that did not materialize).

Random sampling requires each person of the target population of concern [likely voters] each having an equal chance of being contacted. The second half of that equation requires, that once contacted, the random person actually bothers to pick up, and provide honest answers of their opinions.

These principles of polling science are becoming less and less reliable with each passing year.

Polls are a forecasting device of a by-gone age, in terms of reliability and accuracy anyways.

As the saying goes, the only poll that matters is the one that occurs on Election day.

Get out the Vote. Support candidates that you want to see elected.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/17/2241298/-The-Problems-with-Polling?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

[sortagreen]

Do you want to show us on the doll where the Democrats hurt you, little hillbilly.

[sortagreen]

RFK jr is not a candidate. He's a stalking horse bankrolled by Trump supporters. You are a Trump supporter. Go masturbate somewhere else, hillbilly.

[arizona1]

Totally normal!

"RFK Jr. is radical left," the former president said Saturday. "He reminds me of this fly that's driving me crazy up here."