# 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:** 30
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/586 "2024-10-28T20:18:34Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > These uncertainties are very hard to estimate and any calculations would require assumptions of their own which may or may not be true. So that is why pollsters don’t report them. And also because those uncertainties can be quite large, which undermines the credibility of the polling industry. Also, a nice article on polling errors: > **[5 key things to know about the margin of error in election polls](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/08/understanding-the-margin-of-error-in-election-polls/)** > > Some of the better-known statistical rules of thumb that a smart consumer might think apply in polls are more nuanced than they seem. In other words, as is so often the case in life, it’s complicated. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/587 "2024-10-28T20:28:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > You are very gracious and I agree: there is too wide of an error bar for polling based models to be useful in predicting the outcome this cycle. Right, when we restrict “outcome” to mean “winner.” (You and Moriarty both know this; I’m just clarifying it for others). ---
**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:** [October 28, 2024, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/588 "2024-10-28T20:35:23Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Great article showing how decisions that pollsters make can “change” the exact same data by as much as 8 points one direction or the other Excellent read – thanks for posting. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2024, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/589 "2024-10-28T21:36:57Z")
**[Simon Rosenberg](https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/8-more-days-of-working-hard-and-closing)** (my emphasis) in today’s column: > [… Watch] Trump [**admit to paying for fake polls**](https://x.com/pslst15/status/1850010770093781476?s=46) in his Joe Rogan interview a few days ago … > > And a reminder - Rs would only be working so hard to make it look like Trump was winning if they believed he was losing. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2024, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/590 "2024-10-28T21:54:41Z")
**[Tufts University’s Cooperative Election Study](https://sites.tufts.edu/cooperativeelectionstudy/2024/10/28/ces-estimates-on-the-2024-presidential-election/)** was released today. Sample size is 78,247 adults / 48,732 likely voters. Political scientist **[Brian Schaffer](https://nitter.poast.org/b_schaffner)** led the study. (**[LINK](https://nitter.poast.org/b_schaffner/status/1850919058775941605#m)** since white-box preview won’t show) > [**Brian Schaffner**](https://nitter.poast.org/b_schaffner) [@b\_schaffner](https://nitter.poast.org/b_schaffner) > 6h > > just released: national estimates from CES pre-election interviews with over 70k american adults > > National LVs (Oct. 1 - 25): > Harris: 51% > Trump: 47% > > Dynamic crosstabs: [cooperativeelectionstudy.shi…](https://cooperativeelectionstudy.shinyapps.io/prez2024pre/) > Release: [sites.tufts.edu/cooperativee…](https://sites.tufts.edu/cooperativeelectionstudy/2024/10/28/ces-estimates-on-the-2024-presidential-election/) > > Oct 28, 2024 · 3:14 PM UTC This is in line with other large-sample pollsters over the last week such as **[Morning Consult](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2024/Morning_Consult_Oct_18-20_2024.pdf)**. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/591 "2024-10-28T21:56:50Z")
51/47 is about where i expect this race to end up. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/592 "2024-10-30T15:03:46Z")
[Nate Silver with a surprising “this polls are sus” take](https://x.com/natesilver538/status/1851399896860971450?s=46) ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/593 "2024-10-30T15:41:55Z")
While there is definitely herding going on, I think it’s also a side-effect of weighting on recalled 2020 vote (which NYT/Sienna isn’t doing, hence they have more movement in their results). If you assume that the 2024 electorate will match the 2020 one by weighting your responses based on how they claim to have voted in 2020, you are going to get results that are very similar to 2020 but slightly weighted towards Trump (because there will be some number of folks that claim to have voted for Biden but didn’t, and they will be down-weighted). I think polls have told us everything they can tell us, which is that PA, MI, WI, AZ, NV, NC, GA, and maybe MN will almost certainly be within 3 points one way or the other. It will all come down to turnout and whether the adjustments pollsters made this cycle were correct in modeling the likely voter pool. My hope is that they went too far, and are understating Harris’ support. My fear is that they are still not capturing the rural masses and young men that are fanatically devoted to Trump. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/594 "2024-10-30T18:11:46Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > there is definitely herding going on, And while I have been big on defending the science of polling the fact that herding occurs is a big strike against such. Futzing the findings to fit what others are reporting is bad science. ---
**Author:** ![Win\_Place\_Show](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/win_place_show/32/13469_2.png) [@Win\_Place\_Show](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Win_Place_Show)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/595 "2024-10-30T23:52:39Z")
Kind of interesting article about the step-by-step process of the “exit polls” phase. I’m wondering how accurate these will be, if nothing else due to the “gals voting for Harris but aren’t telling anyone, including their MAGAt boyfriend/husband” factor. > **[How exit polls work and how NBC News uses them on election night](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/exit-polls-how-work-voters-data-demographics-rcna175474)** > > The large-scale studies of voters now include phone calls to early and mail voters as well as interviews outside polling places on Election Day. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/596 "2024-10-31T03:32:09Z")
> [@Kamala Harris and the runup to the 2024 Presidential Election {No more on Guns}](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamala-harris-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-presidential-election-no-more-on-guns/1004571/2234): > > In reality the polls were on point of what happened. > **[Pollsters got it wrong in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Here’s why political polling...](https://fortune.com/2022/11/16/pollsters-got-it-wrong-2018-2020-elections-statistical-sophistry-accuracy-sonnenfeld-tian/)** > > Drama-seeking pollsters have turned into pundits. Here's why they're failing to predict election outcomes, according to Yale's Sonnenfeld and Tian. > [@](#): > > The average poll in the week before election day had Mehmet Oz beating John Fetterman by nearly 1% in Pennsylvania when in reality Fetterman beat Oz by nearly 5% > The average poll had Adam Laxalt beating Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada by 1.5% when in reality Cortez Masto is projected to win. In fact, not a single poll in the week before election day projected a Cortez Masto victory. > The average poll had Herschel Walker beating Raphael Warnock in Georgia by 1% when in reality Warnock outperformed Walker by 1%; and not a single poll in the week before election day projected a Warnock victory > The average poll had Maggie Hassan beating Don Bolduc in New Hampshire by only 2% when in reality Hassan soundly routed Bolduc by 15%. Two mainstream polls in the week before election day, including the seminal, admired Saint Anselm poll, even predicted Bolduc victories > An updated prediction, published right before election day by the University of Virginia’s Department of Politics, noted that the Senate races in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania remain “jump balls”. However, the nonpartisan election handicapper shifted its rating in Pennsylvania and Georgia to “leans Republican.” And it shifted its rating for four of the six state gubernatorial elections from a “toss-up” to “lean Republican.” > Gallup confidently declared “The political environment for the 2022 midterm elections should work to the benefit of the Republican Party, with all national mood indicators similar to, if not worse than, what they have been in other years when the incumbent party fared poorly in midterms.” > The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a nonpartisan handicapping service, moved 10 of its House race ratings in favor of Republicans and adjusted its predictions of GOP gains in the fall upward to between 20 and 35 seats and a sizable Republican majority in the Senate. > The Siena poll found that “independents, especially women, are swinging to the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights. …The biggest shift came from women who identified as independent voters. In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, independent women backed Republicans by 18 points–a striking swing given the polarization of the American electorate and how intensely Democrats have focused on that group and on the threat Republicans pose to abortion rights.” > CNN/Marist shifted to strongly favor a red wave: “The survey shifted seven percentage points toward the Republicans in a month.” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/597 "2024-10-31T03:57:59Z")
What an idiotic article. It starts off talking about a red wave that polling aggregators had NOT predicted, goes on about what “average polls” predicted when aggregators do not just average polls. Anyone who at this point is looking to the aggregators to be reliable oracles or dismissing them as worthless because they are not, is willfully ignorant. To repeat yet again: historically heavily polled swing state presidential popular vote results are subject to an _on average_ 3.5% systemic error. Not horrible. But if a bunch of likely tipping point states are all polling with 3? A correlated systemic average error one way or the other is a dramatically different electoral college result. That is not the polling aggregators being wrong; it does not make it a pseudoscience; it is the tool working within its understood limits. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/598 "2024-10-31T03:59:20Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > To repeat yet again: historically heavily polled swing state presidential popular vote results are subject to an _on average_ 3.5% systemic error. Then polls are absolutely useless for the one thing they’re supposed to do - predict the winner of a race. “The poll said X would win by 1.5, and Y won by 1.7, therefore the poll was accurate” is about as useful as checking the candidate’s horoscopes for Election Day. BTW, a swing of 3.5% in 2020 = 5.4 million votes. “We were only off by 5 million!” does not inspire confidence. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/599 "2024-10-31T04:01:12Z")
Does anyone do exit polling of those who have voted early and make that available before Election Day? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/600 "2024-10-31T04:01:50Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Then polls are absolutely useless for the one thing they’re supposed to do - predict the winner of a race. They aren’t useless, but in a case where the election is really close (and will be decided by a percentage point or less), they cannot foresee or predict who will come out on top. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/601 "2024-10-31T04:11:12Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > They aren’t useless, but in a case where the election is really close (and will be decided by a percentage point or less), they cannot foresee or predict who will come out on top A distinction without a difference. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/602 "2024-10-31T04:12:46Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Then polls are absolutely useless for the one thing they’re supposed to do - predict the winner of a race. Yes. Those who are thinking that that is the one thing polls are supposed to do will not find that information there except in fairly rare cases where it is a no duh. They likely want to throw away thermometers as well since a fever or lack of a fever is not a completely reliable measure of a bacterial infection. And cholesterol testing is a pseudoscience since some with normal number have heart attacks and some with high numbers never do. Of course in each of these cases the tool, including aggregated polls, is just a piece of information in a more complete picture that we use to try to understand what is happening and to predict what might happen. Aggregated polls have given us a reasonably likely range of outcomes. The medical analogy is to also look at the rest of the patient. That’s where our discussion of what other information tells us comes in, and why some of us are cautiously optimistic, more than the polling forecast models are. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/603 "2024-10-31T04:13:46Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > but in a case where the election is really close (and will be decided by a percentage point or less), they cannot foresee or predict who will come out on top. Even within two or three points in critical swing states. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/604 "2024-10-31T04:16:25Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Aggregated polls have given us a reasonably likely range of outcomes. The medical analogy is to also look at the rest of the patient. Which brings us back to what started this sidebar to begin with - the observable evidence shows a major enthusiasm gap between the candidates, far more Republicans are supporting Harris than vice versa, and Trump is alienating tens of millions of voters with blatant racism and bigotry, and is projecting an image of weakness, cowardice, and desperation while Harris projects strength and competence. Harris is going to win and it’ll be over before the end of Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2024, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/605 "2024-10-31T04:17:02Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Even within two or three points in critical swing states Well, yes, but the point I was making is that the margin of victory in 2020 in many of the swing states (Wisconsin (0.6%), Georgia (0.2%), and Pennsylvania (1.2%)) suggest that the outcome in those states are likely to be extremely close in 2024, as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779.md?page=31)