# Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 27, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779 "2023-11-27T17:30:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/304 "2024-05-20T17:52:22Z")
Irony, part 1 - I click on @cmyk 's article on teens using iPhones, and the ad on top is for Senior internet. Irony, part 2 - in a thread whos content is saying telephone polls are broken, the centerpiece of the article is statistics based on a telephone poll from a biased source. (c’mon, you’re not going to convince me that a site called “Apple Insider” isn’t going to be biased towards Apple products). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/305 "2024-05-20T18:09:56Z")
I’m not interested in any Apple bias, one way or the other. The actual company that surveyed the kids isn’t Apple affiliated. They’re called Piper|Sandler, and apparently they [survey teens semi-annually](https://www.pipersandler.com/teens) for many years now. Their site says they survey a geographically diverse subset of high schools across the US. Not sure if that’s by phone or leaflet or what. It would certainly put a ding in my theory if it _was_ by phone. In short, what I guess I’m trying to say is a LOT of teens/GenZs have iPhones. Most of those will be screening calls by default. Cold-calls from pollsters will be greatly culled. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/306 "2024-05-20T18:49:14Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > In short, what I guess I’m trying to say is a LOT of teens/GenZs have iPhones. Most of those will be screening calls by default. **Cold-calls from pollsters will be greatly culled.** It’s very much not just teens/Gen Zs, either. From [**the NYT’s methodology disclosure**](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/13/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.html#:~:text=Nate%20Cohn's%20Analysis-,Cross%2DTabs%3A%20May%202024%20Times%2FSiena,Poll%20of%20the%20Presidential%20Battlegrounds&text=Donald%20Trump%20leads%20Joe%20Biden,28%20to%20May%209%2C%202024.) for the May 11-13 NYT/Siena poll: > We spoke with **4,097 registered voters** from April 28 to May 9, 2024 … > > Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For this set of polls, we placed nearly **500,000 calls to about 410,000 voters**. There’s no way that call-screening on smart-phones is strictly a young-people thing. ISTM that the group “people who’d respond to a cold-call poll” is substantially different in age, engagement, and otherwise from the group “people who’d _never_ respond to a cold-call poll”. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/307 "2024-05-20T18:58:50Z")
Oh, definitely agreed. Myself being a fairly tech-savvy, GenX, 51 yo; I’ve also been screening my calls for the last few years. I can imagine this trend will only continue. I contrast that with my extremely conservative, Boomer parents, and they still have and call from a landline. They still get telemarketers and cold calls from everywhere. They do have smartphones, but even on those they get spammed constantly. My parents simply come from a generation and time where if the phone rings, you pick it up. It’s not only that most GenXers, Millennials and GenZs don’t pick up an unrecognized call — their phones literally don’t ring. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/308 "2024-05-21T13:49:10Z")
I’m 66 and I’ve had my iPhone set to send any call not from a contact (and I have few contacts) straight to voicemail with no notification for as long as it’s been an option. I love my iPhone, but I rarely use it to make or receive a call. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/309 "2024-05-21T16:02:57Z")
@SyncoSmalls , I’ve cited your recent post in the “Who’s to blame?” thread over here to avoid a hijack of that thread. > [@Who's to blame if Biden loses?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-to-blame-if-biden-loses/1001233/702): > > I read your take in that thread. The reason it isn’t that persuasive is because there is no reason to think polling procedures are suddenly less reliable than they were in 2020. The methods used then churned out results that more or less lined up with what was observed. If the polls have been rigged to make Trump more popular than he is, this actually should help motivate Dems to vote (less complacency). So I see some grasping at straws here to hold on to a false sense of hope. If you are str… > SyncoSmalls: > **… there is no reason to think polling procedures are suddenly less reliable than they were in 2020.** Thinking more that our jumping-off points are (a) the reliability of the 2022 mid-term polls, and (b) the media coverage thereof. My apologies in advance if you’ve already read through the five posts linked below. > [@Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/232): > > But the consensus of the polls was on target. From 538: [The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/) “Against the consensus of the [2022] polls” are Kuo’s words. Kuo might or might not be wrong to impugn the 2022 midterm polls. Rosenberg himself, FWIW, did not see his prediction as opposing the consensus of the midterm polls – [he saw it as opposing media coverage of the midterm polls](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/27/23475262/midterm-elections-2022-results-red-wave-democrats) (from [Vox.com](http://Vox.com), 11/27/2022): In the months leading up to the [2022] midterms, [many](https://www.wsj.com/articles/brace-yourself-for-a-republican-wave-competitive-district-generic-biden-inflation-economy-georgia-nevada-senate-majority-11666007633) [pundits](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/opinion/midterms-truss-student-loans.html) [and](https://www.axios.com/2022/10/23/republican-wave-midterms-congress) [politicians](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/us/politics/blue-states-midterm-landscape.html) … _(Start with “Rosenberg himself, FWIW …” in the link above. Preceding text is the quote of another poster.)_ > [@Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/233): > > [Further about the 2022 midterm polling and the predicted “red wave” from the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/polling-election-2022-red-wave.html) (from 12/31/2022). The NYT rides the line a bit and allows that “traditional nonpartisan pollsters” were reasonably accurate. But: … a New York Times review of the forces driving the narrative of a coming red wave, and of that narrative’s impact, found new factors at play. Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely … … _Information aimed at 2024:_ > [@Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/244): > > I wish this op-ed had been around when the OP was written. From the Boston Globe, no paywall. The problems with political polls are multiple: The dominance of cell phones and caller ID programs on landlines has made what statisticians call the “response rate” plummet. A generation ago, few Americans would let their phones ring without answering. Now many calls go unanswered as we ignore unrecognized numbers. Such screening means that pollsters must place thousands more calls to reach enoug… > [@Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/258): > > [Simon Rosenberg is shaking the pom-poms again](https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/biden-up-in-new-wi-poll-great-american), getting ready to drop an article specifically about the unreliability of polling-numbers aggregation. Today’s teaser is not about the 2024 presidential election, but looks back at the 2022 U.S. senate polling: Be Careful of Real Clear Politics and Polling Averages - In the coming days I’m going to write about what I think is questionable utility of polling averages. To whet your appetite a bit, let’s revisit Real Clear Politics last Senate map fro… > [@Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/286): > > Simon again – [new article today](https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/alsobrooks-rocks-it-good-inflation): [The New York Times] [released a second national poll (! -b)](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/14/upshot/support-third-party-candidates.html) conducted with a different pollster, Ipsos. This poll did not find the kind of structural weakness for Biden their big Monday poll did. In this poll Biden leads 45.5% to 42.5% (+3) in their initial head to heads between the two candidates. To understand what an outlier Monday’s NYT battleground states poll was let’s look at the other national and state polls [released in recent days](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/)(Biden-Trump): NP… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/312 "2024-05-21T20:04:37Z")
This is as good a place/time as any to mention this: Toward the end of this podcast, they mention how the “margin of error” in these polls is the standard statistical one (one deviation, based on sample size), but this doesn’t include several other types of error — that the true margin is probably typically about twice this. Just a good thing to keep in mind. > **[‎FiveThirtyEight Politics: Are Americans Tuning Out The 2024 Election? on...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000656188291)** > > ‎Show FiveThirtyEight Politics, Ep Are Americans Tuning Out The 2024 Election? - May 20, 2024 (ABC stopped posting 538 podcasts, so you have to go to Apple or Spotify.) ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/313 "2024-05-21T21:02:11Z")
> [@SyncoSmalls](#): > > All this is saying is that the Biden is statistically tied with Trump. Look at the margin of error. **You can’t really say he’s leading when we are dealing with point estimates within a confidence interval**. It’s tougher than that – the margin-of-error applies to _each_ candidate’s poll percentage. That means a percentage difference has to be _twice_ the margin-of-error to be statistically meaningful. Despite my action in this thread, it’s fine to me for others to consider Biden as not leading in the polls. What I rail against are people treating Trump’s victory, in spring 2024, as a _fait accompli_. Done deal. _All downhill for Trump because The PollsTM say so!_ Not so fast. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/314 "2024-05-22T16:21:44Z")
A post was merged into an existing topic: [SyncoSmalls trocking thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syncosmalls-trocking-thread/1001913/110) ---
**Author:** ![TeroSunbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terosunbear/32/14748_2.png) [@TeroSunbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeroSunbear)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/315 "2024-05-22T11:29:49Z")
Poling has success: the people polled are idiots led by Trump and Foxnews to think we are going downhill fast. [Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden | US economy | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-biden) ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/316 "2024-05-22T20:46:35Z")
**[Simon, 5/22/2024](https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/winning-the-house-bynum-rocks-it)**, writing about the differences between the April and May _Morning Consult_ battleground polls: > Here are the results of [new Bloomberg/Morning Consult polling](https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1793230366469157280) of the battleground states, Biden-Trump: > > - AZ 44-49 Biden gains 2 since last poll > - GA 44-47 Biden gains 3, within margin of error > - MI 46-45 Biden gains 1 > - NV 46-46 Biden gains 8 > - NC 42-49 Biden gains 2 > - PA 46-48 Trump gains 1, within margin of error > - WI 46-47 Biden gains 3, within margin of error > **Further reading from today's column** > > These are good polls for us. For Trump to win he needs to win AZ, GA, NV, keep NC, and win one of MI, PA, WI. He lost all these states except NC in 2020. So he has to go get a lot of stuff he didn’t have in 2020. In this poll, and in the three other recent battleground state polls (NYT Likely Voters, Not Registered Voters) he is not ahead, outside of the margin of error, in MI, PA or WI, or any combination of states getting to 270. The map is hard for him, and today, simply and plainly, he is not leading or ahead in the 2024 election. He is not where he wants to be right now. > > Our path to 270 is much clearer. Assuming we win the single Nebraska Electoral College vote we just need to win MI, PA, WI - all states we won last time, and all states where we have strong Dem governors who won in 2022. There are polls now with Biden ahead in AZ, MI, WI and tied in NV (yes this NV result is embarrassing for the New York Times). All four of these battleground polls have PA within margin of error, and a new poll about to be released in North Carolina has the Biden-Trump race there within margin of error, 43-45 Biden-Trump. This is the third poll taken in NC in recent weeks showing the election a toss up in North Carolina. Also note for those worried about Michigan that there are more polls showing us ahead in there than any other battleground state. > > My big point here is that not all the data in front of us is pointing in the same direction - thus folks need to be cautious about jumping to conclusions or letting a single influential poll dictate our understandings. > > The blue wall states - MI, PA, WI - are clearly within margin of error, tied now. We have recent polls showing AZ, GA, NC, NV also within margin of error, tied. Given all this it is simply impossible, wrong and inaccurate to argue that Trump leads or is favored. The election is close and competitive. Our path to 270 is easier. We have enormous financial and organizational advantages now, a better candidate and far, far better arguments. Senate and House polling remains encouraging, and we’ve made meaningful gains in the Congressional Generic. We’ve been winning elections of all kinds across the country since Dobbs and they keep struggling, a dynamic we’ve seen show up in voting in 2024 too ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2024, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/317 "2024-05-24T13:48:06Z")
> [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > If I’m the Democratic **I trust the polling is more or less accurate** … Michael Cohen is testifying under oath about Red Finch and gaming polls back in 2016. > [@Manhattan Prosecutors file criminal charges for Trump re Stormy Daniels case - ongoing discussion here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here/980953/4545): > > per cnn update: Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Michael Cohen what Red Finch did for Trump. Cohen said Trump was polling low in the CNBC poll. "And it upset him,” Cohen says.“And he had me come to his office and provide me a sheet of paper that showed it.” "I reached out to Red Finch who assured me he was able to go through the acquisitions of IP addresses to create an algorithm that would ensure Mr. Trump would rise and rise significantly into this poll,” Cohen added. Cohen is now looking… EDIT: More reading. > **[Trump hired a tech firm to juice his ranking as 'most famous businessman in...](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-trial-polls-red-finch/)** > > Ex-Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on Monday elaborated on efforts to boost his one-time boss's ego by hiring a tech company to artificially inflate his fame on a CNBC poll.Speaking under oath on Monday, Cohen was asked about a tech company named... EDIT 2: I see upon closer reading that Red Finch wasn’t asked to goose political polling. Still … too close. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2024, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/318 "2024-05-24T18:50:05Z")
Here’s an interesting analysis of why the polls have shown Trump leading. > **[The Shaky Foundation of Trump’s Lead: Disengaged Voters](https://www.yahoo.com/news/shaky-foundation-trump-lead-disengaged-114648718.html)** > > The polls have shown Donald Trump with an edge for eight straight months, but there’s one big flashing warning sign suggesting that his advantage might not be quite as stable as it looks. That warning sign: His narrow lead is built on gains among... It seems that Trump’s lead comes from those voters who identify as Democratic but are unlikely to vote. It also shows Trump does better among low information voters, voters who get their news from social media rather than traditional national and local media, and those who have not been paying any attention to the Trump trial. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2024, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/319 "2024-05-24T19:15:24Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > and those who have not been paying any attention to the Trump trial. I wonder if that means a lot of people who haven’t been paying attention to the trial are going to start paying attention once he’s found guilty — or once he’s found not guilty, and starts shouting from the rooftops that he’s been vindicated. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/320 "2024-05-24T19:20:11Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I wonder if that means a lot of people who haven’t been paying attention to the trial are going to start paying attention once he’s found guilty — or once he’s found not guilty, and starts shouting from the rooftops that he’s been vindicated. I think it means that those three things, being low information, getting news from social media, and not paying attention to the trial, are correlated. From what I gather, he people who fit in those three categories but who still identify as Democrats are the ones driving Trump’s polling advantage. I think if they had looked into the demographics of those particular people, it would match with the one’s that we tend to think of as being demographics Biden should have in the bag but is having trouble with, especially young people and Black men. ETA: To be fair, I’m not blaming the people in those demographic groups. I’m blaming the people running the campaign for not doing a good job reaching out to those groups. For example, there was a linked article in one of these P&E threads about a Black man in Detroit who is a local leader and stated he wasn’t sure who he out the other Black men he knows were going to vote for. People like that shouldn’t be in an article talking about how no one has reached out to him. They should be the local Democratic leader organizing their particular community. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/321 "2024-05-25T15:45:15Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Here’s an interesting analysis of why the polls have shown Trump leading. > > [The Shaky Foundation of Trump’s Lead: Disengaged Voters](https://www.yahoo.com/news/shaky-foundation-trump-lead-disengaged-114648718.html) The answer to the conundrum posed in that article is surely as simple as adding one more question to the poll: “do you intend to vote?” ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2024, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/322 "2024-05-25T17:35:29Z")
I wonder if pollsters have determined that any kind of “do you intend to…” question is much less predictive than “well, did you actually vote in the last election?” I have all sorts of intentions; my path is paved with them! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2024, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/323 "2024-05-25T21:23:56Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I wonder if pollsters have determined that any kind of “do you intend to…” question is much less predictive than “well, did you actually vote in the last election?” This all has to do with likely voter screening. Pollsters vary in the questions they ask to try to determine if the respondent will vote. General opinion among pollsters is that likely voter screening only works as you get closer to election day. At present, I am noticing that almost all the national Biden-Trump polling is still being done without a likely voter (LV) screen, but that a lot of the swing state polling has started putting in the LV screen. Like everything with polling, I’m sure there is a good reason for this, but I haven’t come across it. A likely voter screen will reduce sample size. ---
**Author:** ![TeroSunbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terosunbear/32/14748_2.png) [@TeroSunbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeroSunbear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2024, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/324 "2024-05-26T13:34:11Z")
The numbers in the polls for Kennedy only reflect independents and naive people who do not understand that Trump and Biden will be the candidates. They are still voting for “someone else” so that in the end “they will replace Biden.” ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2024, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/325 "2024-05-26T20:58:55Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > once he’s found guilty — or once he’s found not guilty, and starts shouting from the rooftops that he’s been vindicated. I predict that it’s both; He’ll be found guilty on some charges, and therefore shout from the rooftops that he’s been vindicated. Unless my fantasy comes true, and once the guilty verdict is announced, Trump goes right off the rails, threatens the judge, jury and prosecutor with death, and then gets charged with direct criminal contempt and is immediately escorted to his 30 day jail term (before sentencing for the guilty verdict) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779.md?page=17)