Polls can’t predict – but they can warn. And I’m not sure our horserace-obsessed media are heeding the warning
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One of the things these numbers suggest is that the journalists are not getting the truth across to citizens on some key points (or if they are, that truth is being ignored).
The poll respondents claim that one of their big concerns is the economy. If that’s the case, they should be happy with Biden. Among the factors: low inflation, significant growth and low unemployment. Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate economist, wrote recently: “The economic news in 2023 was almost miraculously good.” (Even the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner, he notes, was down 4.5% last year.)
If the economy is that strong and that important to voters – and if Biden can take at least some of the credit – why isn’t it coming across? That’s something for the Biden campaign, primarily; but it’s also something for media people since journalists are supposed to be communicating information so that citizens can vote with knowledge. That should be a higher priority than generating profits, ratings and clicks, but one eventually despairs that it ever will be.
Another major voter concern, of course, is Biden’s age. He’s 81; Trump will be 78 in June. They’re both old; both have memory gaps and both exhibit confusion at times.
Only one of them, however, talks about some migrants as “animals” or predicts a “bloodbath” for the country if he loses. Only one is facing dozens of charges related to crimes including trying to overturn a legitimate election. Only one has promised to be a dictator on day one of his presidency and only one has allies that are meticulously plotting a radical revamping of how America works.
The press has learned that “engagement” is the only way for them to survive. The problem is that they are generating a false narrative to attract more viewers. Basically, it’s become clickbait. They refuse to show all the information because then voters would see it and stop viewing them daily.
The press
Bruh. Do you even know who wrote this article?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sullivan_(journalist)
Like, she was the public editor of the NY Times during that election…
And this whole article is about how she still doesn’t even know the basics of polling like margin of error.
If you were surprised Hillary lost in 2016, the only journalists you should be mad at is ones like this author who just kept telling everyone Clinton was a sure thing and Trump couldn’t possibly win
Which is the same situation this election with Biden, except his numbers are even worse
Being surprised Clinton lost in 2016 is fine; she was the favourite to win. That’s just different from it being a sure thing, which this author doesn’t seem to understand.
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The numbers had her winning a few states by like 2-3%, with 5% margins of error a month out from the election.
If someone was surprised she lost those states after going to California of all states for a victory lap while trump campaigned in those close ones…
Then we should not listen to their advice after telling us they still don’t understand statistics.
This isn’t just some random person, she is a famous journalist with a nationwide platform who seems to think ignorance and zero standards is the best path forward.
The fact that she supports democrats over republicans makes this more concerning, not less.
If the only two options are both like this, it won’t be long till we have no options.
I learned the hard way to be skeptical about the predictive power of public opinion polls.
I remember election night 2016 all too well, as I hit delete on my partially pre-written Washington Post column and instead tried to look into the future of a Trump presidency. It was a future that wasn’t supposed to happen
Polls weren’t wrong…
It’s just way too many people who call themselves “political experts” only looked at popular vote polls because they’re lazy and don’t know what they’re doing. If they did look at state polls, they had no idea what magin of error means, and people learn that in highschool math without ever taking a stats class.
The 2016 election results were literally in range of predictions for 2016.
Clinton was never a sure thing, but journalists like the one who wrote this article just kept screeching at anyone trying to explain that to them.
Just like this same journalist is still doing 8 years later when people say Biden isn’t popular.
They haven’t learned a fucking thing. And they never will.
Part of it is that people want to vote for the winner. So by repeating the narrative that there candidate will be the winner encourages others to want to vote for that person….
But the polls of Hillary versus actual outcome were absolutely within the margin of error
Nah.
They want blind loyalty to the party, zero criticisms allowed and 100% votes from every party member.
She’s no different than Faux News talking heads telling her viewers to disregard all science and only believe her opinion.
Just because she can’t understand polling doesn’t mean polling is worthless. But I’ve seen far too many people on here claim the same thing lately.
It’s dangerous to give these anti science nutjobs a platform, and statistics is a science no matter how much some people disagree with the results.
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The trick to the 2016 polls is that they assumed that the rust belt would be wholly democratic, as it had always been. The Hillary team ignored them completely and was trying to flip Texas. Biden got lucky in 2020 in the rust belt. Trump is spending a lot of time campaigning there again.
And the Democratic party brass are still focusing on flipping Texas, 8 years later.
It’s also a failure of people not understanding that polls are garbage.
It’s also a failure of Biden.
EDIT: Most powerful person on the planet, zero responsibility for his own decisions got it. /s
Do you ever take a break from the anti-Biden agenda of yours?
Do you ever take a break from defending a career politician and a shit human being?
Ok so let’s let Trump win instead because that will be so much better
If you want Biden to win then figure out how to get him to make material compromises with progressives or leftists.
EDIT: Look at all these Trump supporters!!
So…. You’re completely fine to hold democracy hostage unless he meets your demands?
This is why people won’t take you seriously.
Biden decided that it was more important to commit a genocide then to prevent Trump from likely winning.
It’s not the people unwilling to vote for someone committing genocide that is holding the Presidency hostage.
Israel has doctors amputating Gazan prisoners limbs off because their limbs have died from being zip tied for months on end.
That is what you’re supporting.
This is why people won’t take you seriously.
You sure? This is regularly why people take liberal and moderate voters seriously.
I’m not defending him. I’m just not suggesting he’s just as bad as his opposition like you claim- and that apparently is the same thing as defending him in the eyes of propagandists.
I’m just not suggesting he’s just as bad as his opposition like you claim
Quote me saying that.
Your comment history is FULL of you doing nothing but complaining about Biden. You should be more careful to hide your biases.
Sooooo no quote then huh?
There is no comparison between Trump and Biden. Not this time. Biden weaponizing the judiciary, DOJ, FBI to attack his political opponent in kangaroo court trials.
Trump says he’s willing to go to jail and “be the next Nelson Mandela” if that’s what it takes to save this country.
I’ll probably get banned for saying this. So be it. Enjoy your echo chamber. That’s why you’re all Blind and Deaf.
Can you imagine if Obama did January 6th? You people would burst into flames!
Remember, if Trump is immune, so is Biden, Obama, Clinton, and Hillary! Oh Hilary wasn’t president? You sure about that? Lol.
Hahaha OK I have to update: this is the most shit take I’ve seen on Lemmy so far.
Truly the dumbest garbage. How did did you manage to register here? After all you have to be able to type your password twice in a row.
ROFL! Hilarious!
You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb in both senses of the term to believe any of this. Like, bro, you’re on the internet. You can learn all about Trump there, good and bad, and there’s tons of bad, even before his sojourn into politics.
You and all the other MAGAs are getting scammed so hard and the rest of us are just astounded that not only are you falling for it, you’re actively fighting to get scammed some more. It’s like watching a man kick the shit out of himself while screaming about how he’s winning.
LOL and he reveals his true self at last. Blocked.
Absolute dumbass.
The methodology and sampling of polls needs to be scrutinized. The NYT poll from a while back showing Trump +3-4% was incredibly sus. It had a very large rural presence in the sample, and the poll itself suggested that women were split 50/50 on Trump. Given how races have gone post Dobbs, that feels highly unrealistic.
Polls are only as good as their methodology. Frankly, I think many aren’t representative. We shouldn’t be complacent about things, but I think we are flying blind.
They also call landline numbers - which is why it skews rural and dumbass. Anecdotally, every person I know where I live who has a landline fits many of the Trump/Boomer stereotypes. Their cellphone is their backup number and they don’t give it out because they still believe they are paying for each minute even though they have unlimited voice and text.
I’m starting to feel like if that many people want him, then they fucking deserve him
Get your guns and your non-perishable food and tradable commodities that don’t require special storage.
And be prepared to hunker down if shit really does hit the fan when he gets back in.
Everyone think back to the height of pandemic. The lockdowns, virtual all social functions stopping, talk of “curfews.” Shortages of all kinds of normal items, stores were rationing toilet paper lol.
Imagine that but for years.
I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and BIPOC friends: Now is the time, get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn a little first aid, you just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your community. The police will not protect us, they’ve shown they’ll happily shoot us in the face with rubber bullets and club senior citizens to the ground. If a caravan of MAGAts visits your neighborhood with bad intentions you’ll find no support from those in power.
Work towards peace, prepare for the inevitable.
Came here to say this. A society gets the leaders it deserves.
Bullshit. There’s millions of people that don’t deserve him. Blanket observations are ignorant at best- and dangerous at worst.
Yeah it made me pretty pissed when people were saying this same shit after right below 50% of votes were for staying in the EU but Brexit happened anyways. “All the British suck and deserve <negative effect of Brexit that’s occurring> since they voted for it” no stfu, most of the population didn’t even want it
It’s also not even like it’s only Americans whose lives will be directly affected by the next election but millions of migrants, Palestinians, Ukrainians and God knows how many more. So talk about the privilege of this comment, not to mention the dismissal of the half the country who doesn’t want a return to 2020, to just throw the rest of the world under the bus because some may deserve it.
This is a nonsensical statement considering the person who got the most votes even in 2016 was Hillary. If we got the leader we deserved, we never would have gotten Trump.
The problem is that we have a fundamentally undemocratic electoral college system that prioritizes the votes of certain citizens over the votes of other citizens.
And then people suffer needlessly unless they choose violence
blaming the victim of a first past the post electoral system? How american of you
Green line go up became a meme 20 years ago when Bush tried to take a victory lap on low inflation and stock increases.
Stop using indicators that don’t matter to the average American. Those are measurements for economists to look at the top level picture, not for measuring the standard of living for the majority of Americans.
Oh good another economist swearing things are good because they’re using 2022 as a reference (@ that dumb thanksgiving anecdote). It baffles me that they’re baffled.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/
‘polls can’t predict’ ??? its their chief function.
Might be their purpose, but they’re done so shittily these days they can’t be relied on. When was the last time you were polled? Do you have a landline? Do you answer unknown numbers on your cell? Do you go to the mall?
Agreed! IIRC, Boomers are the largest population that still has landlines. Thats just one reason I don’t really pay any attention to polls
The polls for Hillary were within the margin of error
This is the best summary I could come up with:
I remember election night 2016 all too well, as I hit delete on my partially pre-written Washington Post column and instead tried to look into the future of a Trump presidency.
Given that searing memory, I reacted to the recent much-trumpeted Wall Street Journal poll about the 2024 presidential race with, well, not exactly a shrug, but not a primal scream either.
That was the poll that said Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in six of seven crucial battleground states, the very ones most likely to determine who gets elected in November.
The former president is ahead, according to the Journal’s poll, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina; the two candidates are tied in Wisconsin.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate economist, wrote recently: “The economic news in 2023 was almost miraculously good.” (Even the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner, he notes, was down 4.5% last year.)
And I do take seriously the analysis by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, who looked at the Journal poll and several others, comparing them with earlier ones, and concluding that Biden is making slow, uneven progress.
The original article contains 742 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Biden keeps giving weapons to Israel so they can kill more brown people and these people are like “Gee it’s the fucking press’ fault”. All those uncommitted votes and not one mention of Palestine in the entire article.
The silence is deafening
TBF to the press they did cover the uncommitted votes in the primary. Moderates and liberals just decided they didn’t want to take it seriously. They shrugged and said “They’ll vote for Biden when the time comes.”
Is your last line not agreeing that it’s the fault of the press that the issue driving the votes isn’t being talked about?
Same thing
If that’s the case, you’re saying
People shouldn’t blame the press, because it’s the fault of the press
Did you read the article bro? It’s obvious what I’ve meant. Is English your second language or something?
Edit: fuck it I’ll spell it out. The article is blaming the press for not telling people more about Biden administration’s achievements. But the uncommitted votas have shown that a lot of people are not voting for Biden because of the ongoing genocide. And not one mention of it in the article. So I’m not blaming the press for Biden’s poor performance. I’m calling them delusional to think that it’s because of that. Please read the article next time before commenting.
I mean it has been covered. People just ignore it. I’m still getting accused of being a Russian plant even after thousands of votes were cast for uncommitted. Either those votes were cast by Russians or those people don’t have internet I guess.
Glad to see my boy Trump doing so well. Go get em, tiger.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Maybe up your game a little, even Trump isn’t this stupid and lazy.
