There’s a margin of error. They are not worthless. They can also work to create enthusiasm and optimism around a candidate, which, in turn, can prompt people to go vote or to volunteer. Some say it prompts people to say “then I don’t have to go vote.” I don’t believe that.
Of course not. Just like you can’t prove polls don’t ever have a negative impact. But how else do you explain most polls putting Clinton in a healthy lead and then voter turnout being much lower than it should have in an election where Donald fucking Trump was an option? If people weren’t comfortable with the lead seen in polls I really think the voter turnout would’ve been record setting.
edit: admits to not having proof but lays out logic ==> downvoted to hell. Fucking internet people…
Clinton won the popular vote by the amount that polls predicted. She lost the EC due to razor thin margins in some battleground states, which were well within the margin of error of polls in those states.
Everyone thinks 2016 was a miss for polls, it was not. It was a miss for forecasting models that had Clinton at 90%+ chances of winning while her numbers in many battleground states were really tossups.
There were definitely polls that tried to account for the EC, yet nearly everyone was still flat-footed when Trump won. I don’t see how the attitude should be “people interpreted the polls wrong!” if basically everyone did so.
We don’t tell users they have to type perfectly formed commands in order to open a webpage, and then if they don’t, format their hard drives. We build systems that try to assume users will not understand the underlying concepts and yet we still accommodate them. I see no reason that polls shouldn’t be designed with the same ethos. Until they are, I will assume anything a poll tells me is quite likely to be misleading.
And yes I understand statistics enough to know that polls were never meant to tell me exactly what the results will be, so please don’t lecture me on that…
I do believe that polling showing Hillary with a huge lead helped Trump, but I also don’t believe that would happen again because he’s a known quantity now.
There’s a margin of error. They are not worthless. They can also work to create enthusiasm and optimism around a candidate, which, in turn, can prompt people to go vote or to volunteer. Some say it prompts people to say “then I don’t have to go vote.” I don’t believe that.
Cough 2016 cough
You have any proof? If so, I’m happy to stand corrected.
Of course not. Just like you can’t prove polls don’t ever have a negative impact. But how else do you explain most polls putting Clinton in a healthy lead and then voter turnout being much lower than it should have in an election where Donald fucking Trump was an option? If people weren’t comfortable with the lead seen in polls I really think the voter turnout would’ve been record setting.
edit: admits to not having proof but lays out logic ==> downvoted to hell. Fucking internet people…
Clinton won the popular vote by the amount that polls predicted. She lost the EC due to razor thin margins in some battleground states, which were well within the margin of error of polls in those states.
Everyone thinks 2016 was a miss for polls, it was not. It was a miss for forecasting models that had Clinton at 90%+ chances of winning while her numbers in many battleground states were really tossups.
There were definitely polls that tried to account for the EC, yet nearly everyone was still flat-footed when Trump won. I don’t see how the attitude should be “people interpreted the polls wrong!” if basically everyone did so.
We don’t tell users they have to type perfectly formed commands in order to open a webpage, and then if they don’t, format their hard drives. We build systems that try to assume users will not understand the underlying concepts and yet we still accommodate them. I see no reason that polls shouldn’t be designed with the same ethos. Until they are, I will assume anything a poll tells me is quite likely to be misleading.
And yes I understand statistics enough to know that polls were never meant to tell me exactly what the results will be, so please don’t lecture me on that…
It was a very difficult world before Trump. Everyone knows exactly what Trump entails now.
I am struggling to understand what that has to do with this. I am behind on sleep, so maybe if you expand, I will get it?
I do believe that polling showing Hillary with a huge lead helped Trump, but I also don’t believe that would happen again because he’s a known quantity now.