If the polling is this wacky, why bother publishing it at all?

Over the weekend, ABC and the Washington Post published the results of a poll that made both operations look like its results were the product of a month-long exercise with a Magic 8-Ball. The way you know it was an embarrassment is the Post story about the poll began by telling us all we should probably ignore it completely.

The Post-ABC poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.

    • Flying Squid
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      81 year ago

      Because it’s very likely a scam or someone trying to sell me something. What is the advantage of answering one?

      • @[email protected]
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        fedilink
        01 year ago

        I do sometimes get important calls from some gov. office or something like that. As a example, I lost my wallet and a about a week later the office in charged of the found-lost things called to say someone had found it and I could pick it up.

        But to be fair I only ever got 1 scam call and most people I know got the same one (Europolice scam last year)

        Like, where I live scam/sell calls are just not a thing, so might be regional.

        Buy yeah, thanks for the answer, I get you point now.

        • Flying Squid
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          41 year ago

          Europe may be different, but I get a good 12-14 probably scam/spam calls a week here in the U.S. I can tell because they’re never in an area code I’m familiar with or one from a place where I moved away from and don’t know anyone anymore.