Biden CANNOT win without Michigan and Wisconsin, two states that Clinton infamously neglected to campaign in and lost. Getting them, with this equation, puts Biden EXACTLY at 270.

[-] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago

Polls out this far from the election are essentially meaningless, so there's also that

[-] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago

And also, this was news to me, but apparently they're for the most part still doing polls by calling people on the phone from a random number. I cannot possibly imagine that that's true but that's what the article says.

They're like micro optimizing for individual per cents, and then doing something which will eliminate 80% of Gen Z from their polling, and when you ask them about it they apparently say "¯_(ツ)_/¯ IDK we do phone"

[-] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago

Yep. For the last half a dozen elections, the polls have overestimated Republican strength, and underestimated Democratic strength. I think it's in large part because the pollsters still haven't managed to figure out how to poll people who simply will not answer unknown numbers.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

Also, the Republicans rig the voting machines sometimes.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Polls were really bad in 2016, but the seem to have largely corrected that. 2018 polling just before the election was accurate. 2020 was projected as close and it was, there were a few problem states, but nothing like 2016. 2022 was again very accurate.

Polling around the presidential election or maybe just Trump is less accurate, but it's been getting better since 2016.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Not quite. Polls underestimated Democratic support in 2018, 2019's special elections, 2021's special elections, the 2022 midterms, and last year's elections. It's been remarkably consistent how far off they've been.

Do I prefer that to the other way around, as happened in 2016? Sure. But they've clearly over-corrected, and are having significant trouble getting back on track due to the difficulty of polling young people.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Which is why you keep following them to spot trends.

When I started following these states, it was roughly 50/50. Now it's almost all Trump and the gains are increasing, not decreasing.

Right now, Biden has a chance of winning Michigan and Wisconsin, best to know that NOW rather than Sept/Oct/Nov.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Are you a campaign manager or a pundit getting paid to talk about politics? There's honestly no reason at all for the average person to care about polls this far out

[-] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

There are some circumstances you may want to make certain preparations based on the possibility that one candidate or the other may win, and polling trends can help you determine what sort of plans and preparation you should be making.

One example that comes to my mind is that prior to Trump getting elected, my wife was concerned that a trump presidency could lead to Republicans killing Roe V Wade and/or making it more difficult to access birth control, and so she opted to get a longer-lasting IUD prior to the election.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Ok, but didn't the polls have Clinton winning leading up to the 2016 election?

[-] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

The popularity polls, yes. She also won the popular vote by a significant margin.

Trump won some battleground states by slim margins, mostly because Clinton did a terrible job of deciding where to campaign. Also a lot of sketchy voter suppression tactics made those battleground state wins questionable.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

They did, but she was doing her own analysis of the polls and had some concerns that made her think the race was going to be much closer than the polls suggested.

You shouldn't just blindly take the polls at face value, you also need to be thinking critically about them, theres a lot of ways to misrepresent data, a lot of issues that can crop up due to how the polls are conducted, etc. and when she took all of that into account, the polls suggested to her that it was going to be a much closer race than most of the media coverage was saying.

She was still a little surprised that Trump actually won, but it wasn't totally out of left field.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

There's plenty of reason to care. It's a sign Biden's campaign is not yet effective, and Trump is. While most incumbents don't really step up the campaigning until closer to the election, it gives an idea of the ground they need to make up.

It's also worth considering the Trump has been and continues to be great at campaigning. You can not like the guy, but his ability to get large crowds excited at multiple events per day can't be ignored.

There's likely going to be something that really swings the election still, but hoping a random event helps your party is poor strategy. In Trump's case it's unlikely a poor comment is going to hurt him, like the deplorables or binders full of women comments. Hoping for a conviction to change things is an OK backup plan, not plan A.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago

There absolutely is. You follow them continually to establish a trendline.

Since I've been following these key states, I've watched them go 50/50 to virtually all Trump, to all Trump by a wider margin.

Following polls over time lets you see the momentum.

By the time the election comes around, there should be no surprises.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

If your goal here is to not be surprised, I hate to tell you polls have margins of error that mean surprises are inevitable. Also, many polls are not infrequently found to be outside their SE when the actual results come in.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Again, you can reduce the margin of error by plotting the trend line.

It's the same science for watching climate change:

If one candidate is trending up towards election day and another is trending down you can tell which way it's going to swing.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Unless the Electoral College magically goes away, this will be a rough election for a majority of Americans. Lots of long-standing issues are coming to a head with the realization that we've already been fascist for a while.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

There IS a plan to move to the popular vote, but it only kicks in if we get enough states to represent 270 electoral votes.

As of now it's at 205 enacted with 88 pending.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024

83 points (91.1% liked)

politics

18881 readers

4595 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News