# Polling: Unskewed Polls and comments on polling (moved from Harris Thread) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 13, 2024, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665 "2024-08-13T17:10:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [August 13, 2024, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/1 "2024-08-13T17:10:05Z")
A place to talk about polling, not the latest polls, but poll taking and balance. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/2 "2024-08-13T16:13:23Z")
The narratives from Trump and his tribe are that any poll showing Harris-Walz in front are fake polls and they’ve changed the methodology etc etc. I know polls are not indicative of final results, but I remember the rise of the right-wing “Unspun Polls” (probably either 2008 or 2012 - not sure). That exercise in flat-out denial didn’t turn out so well. ---
**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:** [August 13, 2024, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/3 "2024-08-13T16:45:26Z")
It’s key, though, to their “the election was stolen from us!” narrative. Seriously, they’re greasing the skids for the skullduggery they have planned. “How could we have lost when we were up—bigly!—in every honest poll?” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/4 "2024-08-13T16:47:46Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > right-wing “Unspun Polls” Wasn’t it in 2012, with all the chatter about how if you “unskewed” the polls, Romney was leading? I think @adaher was a big proponent of that argument. It boiled down to : “That can’t be right! Obama can’t be that popular!” Well, he was. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/5 "2024-08-13T16:50:04Z")
That was it - [Unskewed Polls](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/09/dean-chambers-meet-the-guy-who-s-re-weighting-polls-to-show-romney-way-ahead-of-obama.html). Thanks! Aged like milk, that did. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/6 "2024-08-13T17:03:44Z")
There’s a germ of truth in there, though. Sitting here quite a few years later, many modern polls are “unskewed” to some extent. Really, they “weight” by certain criteria, which is basically unskewing by a more flattering name. The difference is you ‘weight’ by pre-determined criteria (education, or age, or whatever), not to get the result you want. Getting representative samples is very difficult these days. People don’t answer their phones. And those who do are generally not representative of the voting population, so some pollsters will ‘weight’ certain responses more than others so that they can get something representative. Tricky business, though. And to be avoided as much as possible, which it may well not be given the difficulty these days in getting representative polling samples. And definitely don’t make up numbers to fit the answer you want to hear. That’s just right out. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/7 "2024-08-13T18:14:34Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Getting representative samples is very difficult these days. People don’t answer their phones. And those who do are generally not representative of the voting population, so some pollsters will ‘weight’ certain responses more than others so that they can get something representative. > > Tricky business, though. And to be avoided as much as possible, which it may well not be given the difficulty these days in getting representative polling samples. If you mean weighting responses is to be avoided as much as possible, that’s absolutely not true. For the reasons you mention, your collected results will not match the voting population, and if you want an accurate estimate of the actual vote, you must weight it. Some of what the “unskewed” folks did was _un-weight_ the results, so if 60 of 100 respondents favored Trump, that was 60% - never mind that 95% of the respondents were white rural voters. That’s just as wrong as using incorrect weights. You’re right that determining the proper weights is very tricky business. That, among other things, is what sets trusted pollsters apart from hacks. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/8 "2024-08-13T18:18:08Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > You’re right that determining the proper weights is very tricky business. That, among other things, is what sets trusted pollsters apart from hacks. Yep. Properly determining weighting parameters is why real pollsters get paid so much money. Not very many people can do this properly. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/9 "2024-08-13T18:25:17Z")
I thought the polls were screwed up when Biden was losing and I still think the same now that they show Harris ahead. Not that she is losing (I did think Biden was going to win), just that everything is off. If you looked at the crosstabs on some of those polls every single one shows ridiculous things like Trump winning the young vote and Biden winning the boomer vote. Once you dig down into the details none of the polls have made any sense for the whole year. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/10 "2024-08-13T18:29:18Z")
Like the recent Siena (highly rated) polls out of PA, MI and WI that show Harris up 50/46 in all three states: - Only winning age 18-29 by +15. Biden 2020 was in the +30s. - Only winning age 30-44 by +6. Biden 2020 was in the +25s. - Winning age 65 and over by +13. Biden 2020 lost them by 11 points. - Losing white voters by only 1. Biden 2020 lost them by 13 points. - Only winning Black voters by +68. Biden 2020 was +82. Also she’s only getting 81% of the Black vote. Biden 2020 was in the over 90% range. - Other races (Latino, Asian, Mixed, Middle Eastern, etc) she only wins by +5. Biden 2020 was in the +30s. Make that make sense… ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/11 "2024-08-13T18:32:53Z")
Here’s a really good article from Pew Research (who know a lot about the topic). A few interesting points: > - **Different polling organizations conduct their surveys in quite different ways.** > - **The real margin of error is often about double the one reported.** The margin of error addresses only _one_ source of potential error: the fact that random samples are likely to differ a little from the population just by chance. But there are three other, equally important sources of error in polling: nonresponse, coverage error (where not all the target population has a chance of being sampled) and mismeasurement. Not only does the margin of error fail to account for those other sources of potential error, it implies to the public that they do not exist, which is not true. > - **All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting” to make sure that samples align with the broader population on key characteristics.** > **[Key things to know about election polling in the United States](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/05/key-things-to-know-about-election-polling-in-the-united-states/)** > > The real environment in which polls are conducted bears little resemblance to the idealized settings presented in textbooks. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/12 "2024-08-13T18:41:04Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > If you mean weighting responses is to be avoided as much as possible, that’s absolutely not true. For the reasons you mention, your collected results will not match the voting population, and if you want an accurate estimate of the actual vote, you must weight it. That’s saying the same thing from the other way round. In an ideal world, the polling sample will be representative. But in the real world, this is effectively impossible (and has become more so in recent years), so weighting becomes necessary. But it also increases margins of error. > [@TroutMan](#): > > Some of what the “unskewed” folks did was _un-weight_ the results, so if 60 of 100 respondents favored Trump, that was 60% - never mind that 95% of the respondents were white rural voters. That’s just as wrong as using incorrect weights. Those are still incorrect weights. Just incorrect in a different way than somebody legitimately trying to get good weights and failing to do so. ---
**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:** [August 13, 2024, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/13 "2024-08-13T18:49:37Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > If you mean weighting responses is to be avoided as much as possible, that’s absolutely not true. For the reasons you mention, your collected results will not match the voting population, and if you want an accurate estimate of the actual vote, you must weight it. You’re right, but I think missing the point of the @Great_Antibob: it’s preferred to have a polled sample that better matches the actual population. (Edited to add: I should’ve previewed, but looks like I was reading correctly.) ---
**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:** [August 13, 2024, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/14 "2024-08-13T18:55:10Z")
Hey … what are we in the “**[Polling is broken?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-is-broken-right-or-is-it-the-news-or-all-of-the-us/993779/411)**” thread? Chopped liver? 😉 > [@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/993779/411): > > Largest lead in the [RealClear Polling aggregate](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris) for the Democratic candidate since August 28 of last year. RCP rolled off a few aged Trump-plus polls and added the Morning Consult’s huge sample-size survey. [[Imgur] ](https://imgur.com/gallery/2024-gneral-election-trump-vs-harris-rcp-08132024-15EZDtF) ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/15 "2024-08-13T18:56:41Z")
Crosstabs are really tiny sample sizes with very large margins of error. ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/16 "2024-08-13T19:01:14Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > - Only winning age 18-29 by +15. Biden 2020 was in the +30s. > - Only winning age 30-44 by +6. Biden 2020 was in the +25s. > - Winning age 65 and over by +13. Biden 2020 lost them by 11 points. This set of numbers has a plausible hypothesis at least - as Biden has said and said, the economy is doing “great”. But that’s “great” for people who own houses and investments (the older brackets) while the younger folks are really hurting from inflation. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/17 "2024-08-14T15:49:27Z")
This is a great thread for my hypothesis that the explanation for both Democratic over performance in the last few years of special elections, and Trump/extremist under performance in primaries, is that young, technologically savvy voters, whom I dub “Swifties”, are almost impossible to contact by pollsters, and thus these voters’ overwhelmingly anti Trump views are not being well captured by polls. If this hypothesis is correct, then Harris is on the way to a landslide victory. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/18 "2024-08-14T15:57:46Z")
If the young folk can be bothered to vote. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2024, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/19 "2024-08-14T17:06:43Z")
> [@Kamala Harris and the runup to the 2024 Presidential Election](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamala-harris-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-presidential-election/1004571/482): > > > [@Kamala Harris and the runup to the 2024 Presidential Election](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kamala-harris-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-presidential-election/1004571/480): > > > > Nate Silver has Harris with a 83% chance of wining VA. > > Weird, I wonder what polling data he has. Silver, G. Elliot Morris of 538, and several other forecasters have a system built into their models where “no state is an island”. Essentially, trends in polled neighboring states have been found to bleed through the borders and indicate something about what’s happening in an unpolled state. Virginia’s lean in Silver’s analysis today is certainly being influenced by recent state-level polls in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and likely Ohio. And it’s not necessarily going by raw red/blue status. Ohio _might_ today still poll as a comfortable Republican win, but if Trump is today getting (say) ~55% of Ohioans instead of (say) ~59% in recent past polling, that pro-Harris trend in Ohio will count some in scoring Virginia “bluer”. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665/20 "2024-08-14T17:42:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > young, technologically savvy voters, whom I dub “Swifties”, are almost impossible to contact by pollsters, This may be true, but it accuses the professional statisticians of not doing statistics. They have all kinds of systems to weight the statistics. They proudly claim that they can accurately break down every conceivable specific population. (men with less than 2 years college, white woman in suburbia, bi-lingual, single parents, black, white, mixed race, income levels, registered voter, likely voters, and every combination of categories, etc) So why not factor in one more category–the Swifties? Sure, the swifties don’t answer their phones. But they do answer texts. And it’s easy to find them: just go to college campuses! And not just the ivory tower campuses, but also commuter community colleges , junior colleges, beautician training and trade-schools, christian bible schools, etc. Also, stand outside an iphone store ,with a clipboard and a questionaire, and collect statistics the old fashioned way. Some of the work would require spending money for personal interviews and focus groups, but a lot could then be followed up with text messages. And as for expenses… surely a hundred field workers, each working 6 hours to interview 10 or 20 Swifties , would cost less than a single 30-second TV ad. Statisticians want accurate numbers, and there are huge party organizations who desperately need them, and will pay for it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling-unskewed-polls-and-comments-on-polling-moved-from-harris-thread/1005665.md?page=2)