Read This If You Still Think Political Polls Mean Anything
by Tyler Durden Jul 2, 2016 6:15 PM
As a species, humans tend to behave as a herd, following one another in opinion and action — whether or not the consequences for doing so are dire. Of course, politicians and others holding seats of power, fully cognizant of the opportunities provided by this herd mentality, deftly manipulate the masses — particularly through public polls during the lead-up to presidential elections.
Most everyone comprehends how bias-infused political polling can be; however, the extent such polls play in the outcome of elections — and, conversely, how their artfully constructed questions and population samples often miss the mark — makes polling an essentially needless, if not dangerous, facet of the American electoral season.
Polls, to put it plainly, are propaganda — and have been for decades — but one particular election handily evidences this, and offers chilling insight into this year’s presidential race: the 1980 election between incumbent President Jimmy Carter and challenger Ronald Reagan.
Polls, for months, predicted either Carter’s win or declared the race anyone’s guess; but when Reagan managed a landslide victory — veritably crushing his opponent — politicians and the public, alike, revisited polls to parse out how pollsters managed such skewed and inaccurate forecasts.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-02/read-if-you-still-think-political-polls-mean-anything
Minor edit made - the text was duplicated three times. Removed the duplicate paragraphs. Mod2
You KNOW that I hate to agree with Sinkspur on anything. But in this case, he is at least partically correct. You cannot simply lump all polls together and say that they are biased or that they don't reflect public sentiment. There certainly ARE push polls. And there certainly are polls that have absurd methodologies with disproportionate sampling...which can happen deliberately or simply through poor technique. In some cases, such as the recent WAPO/ABC polls, the sampling groups are absurdly skewed with Dems disproportionately represented...and my guess is that this did not happen inadvertently. Nonetheless, most of the polls out there right now are...collectively at least...almost certainly representative of public sentiment.
Now Spur is clever, he states that the October polls have been very accurate in the past elections. This is true. However, it is not October...and in fact we are in the pre-convention cycle in which polls are NOTORIOUSLY non-predictive. So he is technically correct, but deliberately deceptive. Further, states that it is the "trends" that matter now...this too is correct...but it doesn't free us from having to examine the methodologies of each poll as it is released...so first you must eliminate the poorly done polls and THEN you can look at trends to see where things are going.
Sink is also factually incorrect about Trump trailing in 27 of 28 polls since May 3rd...but we have to acknowledge that is certainly behind Mrs. Clinton at this point. Most like by 3-4% looking at RCP averages....though the most recent Rasmussen shows a nice swing with Trump AHEAD by 4%. At this point though, that may simply be "statistical noise", so we'll have to wait to see if that is backed up with other polls.
Of note at this point is that some polls are careening wildly...Wapo goes from Trump +2 in mid May to Clinton +12. Rasmussen swings from Clinton +5 to Trump +4. A LOT of that shifting is related to samples...and its worth noting that sampling techniques have not caught up to modern technology and they are ALL struggling at trying to find good representative samples. Couple that with people actually having two candidates they are not thrilled with, and its not surprising we're seeing wild swings in polling results.
Like most elections, the polls will not solidifiy until we have the conventions...and at least the 1st debate (which will be of tremendous importance this year...if one of the two looks like a "reasonable and responsible agent for change", that individual will make huge gains IMHO. In Mr. Trump's case he must somehow look "reasonable and thoughtful", and in Mrs. Clinton's case she must somehow look like she is "pro-change". Big tasks for both no doubt...a fact making that first debate impression of paramount importance.
Long story short, polls do matter and can't be written off as simple propaganda. Some are, but most are not...though some have poor methodology. The bigger point is that polls are not very predictive at this point, and we should not be looking at them as strong indicators of how the actual voting is going to go.
