tuscl

Pre-election polls

8TM
North America
Wednesday, November 4, 2020 1:35 PM
I really don’t know how in 2020 a polling company could get an accurate sample of the population at all. They definitely wouldn’t be able to get my cell number and if they did I’d hang up on them. People are correctly worried about privacy. Some stranger is reaching out to you and wants to know all your political opinions, how do you know they’re legit? With modern phishing techniques it’s easy for a stranger to impersonate a legit company. If they are legit, how do you know your responses are really anonymous and won’t get hacked or leaked? Oh yeah, and the call might be recorded. I think the whole industry is obsolete, it’s simply not possible to just invent a better model. The problem is there’s so much $$$ in campaigns and those campaigns will keep spending on polls because that’s what they’ve always done. If I make one prediction, I think by 2024 that mainstream news outlets will start reporting on betting market odds as the main predictor for the big races.

5 comments

  • RandomMember
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    4 years ago
    I followed the election simulations at 538 and The Economist in the months leading up to the election. Also followed one of the betting markets, Predictit. Both of the simulators had Biden winning easily with 538 giving Trump a 10% chance of winning and The Economist only 3%. Most of the polling averages of battleground states on 538 were off quite a bit. Still, both predicted the qualitative features of the election correctly with Biden taking Arizona and the battleground states in the Midwest. All in all, I think both sites are still worth following. Predictit varied all over the place and the polling/simulations were more reliable than the betting market. Don't understand the privacy issue? If someone wants to know my voting preference, I don't see the big deal.
  • JamesSD
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    4 years ago
    Latino men in Florida was a big miss. Overall the polls were ok, a bit too down on Trump and Republicans in general. But 538 gave Trump a much higher chance than most other sites. Good polling is going to get harder and harder especially at the state level. Nationally the numbers were decent overall, biden won the popular vote by a lot.
  • mjx01
    •
    4 years ago
    I seem to recall 538 predicting 8-10% lead in popular vote just days before election. Popular vote is what right now? ~3% maybe. How the heck are mainstream polls off by that much? So many places were predicting a blue tsunami, and it probably ended up being a SMALLER margin than 2016. WTF?
  • wallanon
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    4 years ago
    Yeah, the same on opinion polls. Didn't get called but if I did I'd tell them who I'd vote for. Who cares? I'm one dude of millions.
  • wallanon
    •
    4 years ago
    More about polls. The political kind. Gallup poll on party affiliations and independent voters. [view link]
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