In one universe, Kamala Harris leads only narrowly in the national popular vote against Donald J. Trump, even as she holds a discernible edge in the Northern battlegrounds. The numbers look surprisingly similar to the 2022 midterm election.

In the other, Ms. Harris has a clear lead in the national vote, but the battlegrounds are very tight. It’s essentially a repeat of the 2020 election.

This divide is almost entirely explained by whether a pollster uses “weighting on recalled vote,” which means trying to account for how voters say they voted in the last election.

  • @just_another_person
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    1 month ago

    Polling has been unreliable for a decade. It is literally never statistically as accurate as it used to be for a million reasons. It gives the broadest possible view for limited regions, but has not been showing statistically relevant results. When was the last time ANYONE here answered a call from an unrecognized number and answered polling questions here?

    I don’t know why they keep writing articles like this.

    • Repple (she/her)
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      131 month ago

      I answered an unknown number recently because it was from an area code I was expecting a call. It turned out to be a pollster, at least they presented themselves as such. The first few questions seemed reasonable, but then it quickly became obvious that it was a call supporting someone running for local office pretending to be a poll. I was not going to vote for that person to begin with, but this was really disgusting.

    • @rockSlayer
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      51 month ago

      Because it’s part of the sports-ification of politics.

    • TipRing
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      41 month ago

      I actually answered an unrecognized local number on Saturday thinking it might be a pollster, but it was my local voter turnout organization calling to make sure I intended to vote and to see if I needed a ride to the voting center.