# Polling **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 7, 2019, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154 "2019-06-07T05:57:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2019, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/21 "2019-06-08T11:11:05Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > An excellent Twitter feed about polling and related issues: > > [https://twitter.com/joshtpm/lists/numbers-peeps?lang=en](https://twitter.com/joshtpm/lists/numbers-peeps?lang=en) Nice. Good to see two of my favorites, Harry Enten and Amy Walter, on there (along with luminaries like “the Nates” Cohn and Silver). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/22 "2019-06-18T15:25:24Z")
> **[Support among Democrats for beginning impeachment hearings grows in new...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/support-impeachment-grows-among-democrats-new-nbc-news-wsj-poll-n1017751)** > > Americans overall remain divided over beginning impeachment hearings but Democratic support has surged since last month. > [@](#): > > Looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, a combined 37 percent of registered voters say they’re enthusiastic or comfortable about voting for Trump, while 52 percent say they’re “very uncomfortable.” > > That’s compared with 40 percent who are enthusiastic or comfortable about voting for Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, the former vice president, plus 31 percent who are “very uncomfortable.” Frustratingly, they do not include all the data, and I couldn’t find it elsewhere (unless it’s behind the WSJ paywall). But if you read the whole article, there is clearly another category not mentioned in this section: “have reservations”. So Trump partisans can on the one hand spin this as half full: “Look, our guy is only three points behind Biden on the combined ‘comfortable/enthusiastic’ categories!” But they are 21 points worse in the “very uncomfortable” box. By inference, we can say there is probably something close to a tenth of the electorate who “has reservations” about voting for Trump, in addition to over half being “very uncomfortable”; whereas Biden has a much larger “reservations” group of about one-fourth of the electorate. (That almost certainly includes a lot of hardcore Democrats who, like me, are not enthused about Biden, but will drag ourselves over broken glass to vote for him in November 2020 if he is the nominee, because we are so intent on getting rid of Trump.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/23 "2019-06-18T16:30:11Z")
It seems to me that would be most meaningful are head-to-head comparisons. “If the election were held today, and were Biden vs. Trump, whom would you vote for?” (and repeat for several other Democratic candidates). If you really want to get fancy, you could start by asking which Democratic candidate the answerer likes best, and then (if it’s not one of the ones you’ve already asked for) “If the election were Trump vs. your preferred Democratic candidate, whom would you vote for?”. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/24 "2019-06-18T17:14:28Z")
I wouldn’t put much stock in enthusiasm data this early in the campaign. That becomes more of a thing in the general, once the parties ask voters to unite behind a single candidate. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/25 "2019-06-18T17:19:19Z")
Head to heads or “trial heats” are notoriously inaccurate this far out. But I believe the polls that show 52-55 percent unwilling to even consider Trump really do mean something this time, because we have never seen something like this before. They reflect that a majority, albeit a modest one, sees the trainwreck for exactly what it is. Five years ago, if a time traveler from 2019 described everything that has happened, the only real surprise would be that these numbers weren’t at least 70%. ---
**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:** [June 18, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/26 "2019-06-18T18:10:23Z")
There have been other polls that have showed similar numbers and the issue is the same: being uncomfortable voting for Trump is not the same as voting for the person running against him. The biggest winner last time was as usual not bothering to vote. It is consistent with Trump having a ceiling of support. But he’s had that ceiling. He’s never been popular and the honeymoon after an election was for him very brief. But his ceiling is, if he wins the right states, just enough for him to win. A D candidate needs more than voters not voting for Trump. They need voters to also vote for them. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/27 "2019-06-18T18:14:33Z")
Wouldn’t hurt, but this time I think it’s actually the best bet for the nominee to be the closest thing to a bowl of plain oatmeal in a bowl labeled “Generic, Inoffensive Democrat Who Speaks In Vague Platitudes”. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/28 "2019-06-19T23:34:59Z")
Are we trusting these polls? I know people say the polls in 2016 were within the margin of error, but I also know everyone thought Clinton was essentially a lock. If it was the media’s faulty analysis of the polls, do we know they’ve learned their lessons? I honestly don’t know what or who to trust. Have the pollsters learned from the shy Trumper effect? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/29 "2019-06-20T02:51:40Z")
The polls were all reasonably accurate, and the media almost all misinterpreted them. The solution is to continue to trust the polls, but to not trust most of the media. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/30 "2019-06-20T03:34:37Z")
And let’s please note that Nate Silver and 538 did NOT call Hillary a lock. They gave Trump a one in three chance of winning (and took a lot of flak for it from the “lock” crowd). 1 in 3 is Russian roulette with two bullets in a six-shooter, and one of them rolled into the chamber. Let’s also remember that the polls were pretty accurate last fall. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/31 "2019-06-20T04:50:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The polls were all reasonably accurate, and the media almost all misinterpreted them. The solution is to continue to trust the polls, but to not trust most of the media. What about the SDMB? This tends to be a community of people who look into the granular details and don’t accept what they’re fed by the media, but a poll taken in 7/16 had a 82% chance of a win for Hillary (not sure if things changed later). And like others have said, fivethirtyeight was relatively conservative and they had Hillary at 70%. I recall seeing a bunch of battleground state electoral analysis that was calling for a Clinton landslide, so I can’t imagine it was all down to over-reliance on national polls. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/32 "2019-06-20T07:06:09Z")
Do you really think 70% (which was as low as 60% earlier in the fall) is the chances one would give to a likely landslide? If I saw that for a Senate election (which does come down to popular vote), I would expect that the candidate with the 70 percent chance would probably win by one or two points. Hillary won by 2.1 points. Even 86% is probably more like four or five points. A ten point win is going to look more like \>95%. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/33 "2019-06-20T12:47:30Z")
I’m not sure how a poll of the SDMB translates into an 82% chance of a Clinton victory. Was the question just “Who do you think is more likely to win?” Because if everyone thought that she had a 2/3 chance of winning, that would have resulted in a 100% for Clinton in the poll. As for the folks saying 99% or more based on individual state polls, the problem there was that they were incorrectly assuming that states are uncorrelated. In reality, in a case where Trump outperforms his polls in Ohio, he probably also does so in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and likely does so in Florida and Iowa and other states. Which is what in fact happened. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/34 "2019-06-20T14:03:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do you really think 70% (which was as low as 60% earlier in the fall) is the chances one would give to a likely landslide? If I saw that for a Senate election (which does come down to popular vote), I would expect that the candidate with the 70 percent chance would probably win by one or two points. Hillary won by 2.1 points. > > Even 86% is probably more like four or five points. A ten point win is going to look more like \>95%. Poor choice of words on my part. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/35 "2019-06-20T14:18:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m not sure how a poll of the SDMB translates into an 82% chance of a Clinton victory. Was the question just “Who do you think is more likely to win?” Because if everyone thought that she had a 2/3 chance of winning, that would have resulted in a 100% for Clinton in the poll. > > As for the folks saying 99% or more based on individual state polls, the problem there was that they were incorrectly assuming that states are uncorrelated. In reality, in a case where Trump outperforms his polls in Ohio, he probably also does so in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and likely does so in Florida and Iowa and other states. Which is what in fact happened. I’ve been imprecise in my wording. The question was “Who do you think our next president will be.” While it may not ask “What is probability of a Clinton win?” it still illustrates that 82% of people in a relatively analytical and detail-oriented population thought she would win and, iirc, most people thought it would be by a pretty safe margin. I think even pollsters said they didn’t take into account the Shy Trumper effect. Im just wondering if they’ve made changes to their methods after 2016, who I can trust, and how to get an accurate assessment for 2020. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/36 "2019-06-20T14:20:58Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > I’ve been imprecise in my wording. The question was “Who do you think our next president will be.” While it may not ask “What is probability of a Clinton win?” it still illustrates that 82% of people in a relatively analytical and detail-oriented population thought she would win and, iirc, most people thought it would be by a pretty safe margin. I think even pollsters said they didn’t take into account the Shy Trumper effect. Im just wondering if they’ve made changes to their methods after 2016, who I can trust, and how to get an accurate assessment for 2020. The polling in 2016 was actually quite good, on a national level, and even on a state-by-state level was quite good aside from a few states. Only Michigan (or maybe Wisconsin) had a greater than “normal” level of error in the polling aggregates, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/37 "2019-06-20T14:21:53Z")
I don’t think polls are going to be of much value at any point during this race. As the last election proved, enough people have zero problem lying to pollsters if they believe their sincerely held beliefs are problematic to make any poll results questionable. Best I can tell, it seems to work a bit like this. A) Mainstream commentators decide amongst themselves that right-of-center positions are only held by a bad fringe. B) Voters then lie to pollsters in response. C) A vote is held. D) Same commentators switch to complaining about dangers of “populism”. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/38 "2019-06-20T14:27:43Z")
Did you miss the 2018 election results? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/39 "2019-06-26T21:17:00Z")
A new poll has found some vulnerabilities for Trump among his base, particularly regarding taxes and health care: [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/24/democratic-poll-trump-health-care-1377517](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/24/democratic-poll-trump-health-care-1377517) > [@](#): > > American Bridge polled voters in small towns and rural areas, screening out self-identified liberal Democrats, to find out what they thought of the president. The group gave Trump a positive job approval rating overall, and it backed a generic Republican for Congress by 29 points over a generic Democrat. But the Republican-leaning pool of voters also gave Trump unfavorable ratings on several key issues, highlighting potential avenues of attack for American Bridge: 50 percent rated Trump negatively on “cutting taxes for people like me.” > > Several health care questions were worse for the president. Just 25 percent of respondents gave Trump a positive rating for “reducing health care costs,” compared to 67 percent who rated him negatively, while they split against Trump 39-51 on “taking on the drug and pharmaceutical companies.” I like the savvy exhibited in their stated goal: “We’re trying to go from losing these segments 85-15 to maybe 75-25”. That sounds like it’s still a calamitous loss, but it would actually checkmate Trump in swing states. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154/40 "2019-06-27T12:48:53Z")
If Donald actually loses a couple of points in his base, he’s toast next year because I don’t think he can make up the deficit elsewhere… I wish I had confidence in that happening. Repeating myself here, I will never understand people lying to pollsters. I can not wrap my brain around the desire to do this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polling/835154.md?page=3)