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My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. Polls, friends, community, etc. It seems man

My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. Polls, friends, community, etc. It seems many communities, including SV, have tried to ostracize those with opposing viewpoints. Trump's strength is built on that, whether an individual will be public about it or not. I read somewhere (sorry no source) that this election has seen the fewest bumped stickers/yard signs in recent history. Edit: Remember, this is HN, not Reddit, keep it civil. And also keep in mind, odds are pretty low you will change anybody's view at this point, especially over comments ;)

crocowhile 10y ago
Look into the "shy tory factor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor People are more likely to lie about their voting intentions when the media create a climate of moral stigma around their candidate. I am sure this is going to happen in the uk too. The Democrats have run the wrong campaign.
- Cshelton 10y ago
  Ahh, exactly. I think this kind of thing is quite dangerous. When people become afraid to say what they think and/or get berated when they do, it's a very dangerous climate. For any side. All of the sudden people start to believe something they actually don't believe in because of this stigma. The current state of the media is the worst. Do I know how to fix it....I wish. We live in a world of headlines...And it's too easy to put almost any information you want to appeal to your viewer base, despite how inaccurate it may be. Tough problem. I saw a great "life pro tip" recently: If the News it telling you how to feel, it's not news. Always remember that.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zitterbewegung 10y ago
I've heard this from many sources but do you have anything to back up the assertion?
dangoor 10y ago
Why would people need to lie to the professional pollsters, though? If the election were held today and Trump won, it would be way outside of the margin of error on the polls.
- VLM 10y ago
  Garbage in, garbage out. No need for anyone to lie. Take for example the most recent Rasmussen showing Trump winning by 2%. To quote rasmussenreports.com: "Typically, calls are placed from 5 pm to 9 pm local time during the week." "After the surveys are completed, the raw data is processed through a weighting program to ensure that the sample reflects the overall population in terms of age, race, gender, political party, and other factors. The processing step is required because different segments of the population answer the phone in different ways. For example, women answer the phone more than men, older people are home more and answer more than younger people, and rural residents typically answer the phone more frequently than urban residents." Seriously, who answers spam calls at home between 5pm and 9pm? Anyone here? At all? rasmussen and all other poll operators keep their transfer function secret. Its entirely possible their transfer function bears no relationship with who it actually going to show up and vote in November. Lets pick on a semi-public transfer function from IDB. Their poll shows a dead tie Trump and Clinton both exactly 41%. However check the fine print about their transfer function "Party identification breakdown: (Unweighted) 261 Democrats/261 Republicans/275 Independents; (Weighted) 291/235/271." Seriously, they believe 23% of republicans are going to stay home on voting day? Seriously? I mean when I was a kid, even Pravda would have been embarrassed to publish something like that. Obviously the editorial board saw a Trump win in the results and ordered the Republican weighting decreased until the printable result was a tie at worst. Pew claimed in 2015 "When the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 48% either identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 39% identify as Republicans or lean Republican. The gap in leaned party affiliation has held fairly steady since 2009, when Democrats held a 13-point advantage (50% to 37%)." So Pew implies the IDB transfer function should be wildly different, something like 48%/39%/13% than what they actually used to "surprisingly" provide a predetermined result. Note that for the actual vote in November, plus or minus the usual dead people always voting democratic, the transfer function is very close to 1:1. My vote is counted as one vote, not some weird fractional part of a vote depending on my race or whatever the polling companies are doing.
koolba 10y ago
> My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. Polls, friends, community, etc. I know quite a few in this camp. > It seems many communities, including SV, have tried to ostracize those with opposing viewpoints. Trump's strength is built on that, whether an individual will be public about it or not. I read somewhere (sorry no source) that this election has seen the fewest bumped stickers/yard signs in recent history. I'd believe that. It'd be a combination of people not actually liking Clinton enough to want to show support and people being scared of actively showing support for Trump. The Clinton camp has done a decent job of bucketing all Trump supporters as racists assholes so it naturally makes it uncomfortable for people to voice their support. I'm pretty sure that's working as intended.
Finnucane 10y ago
If that were true, then down-ticket Republicans wouldn't be seeing as much of a sag in their support. And that wouldn't account for the narrow margins in states where the Republicans usually have stronger positions. And, there's still a fairly high level of undecideds and 3rd-party voters who might switch late (as usually happens)--polls seem to be indicating that these are swinging favorably to Clinton, and not to Trump.
Ensorceled 10y ago
That's the Brexit Theory. We'll see if it applies to Trump.
- bko 10y ago
  Prior to the vote, the polls were at a dead-heat meaning the outcome was within margin of error. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/britain-s-eu-referendum http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/britain...
bko 10y ago
The exact same thing has been said about 2008 in regards to Obama's popularity in popular media and the idea that it was socially unacceptable to oppose him. It was wrong then and the final outcome closely resembled the polls leading up to the election [0]. I suspect this theory is wrong in this case as well. [0] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/natio...
- artursapek 10y ago
  I don't think the media was colluding against McCain the way they are against Trump. There's a real stigma being created about supporting Trump.
  - nkozyra 10y ago
    > There's a real stigma being created about supporting Trump. Would you consider this unwarranted? Not necessarily in a political sense, but by way of the man's earned & self-professed reputation.
    - artursapek 10y ago
      Don't get me wrong - Trump has certainly earned negative attention on his own. But the DNC has worked with the supposedly "unbiased" media to focus a disproportionate amount of negative energy on him, and they've hired people to harass and assault his supporters. These are dirty tactics they've employed to try to win the election. So yes, the incredible amount of stigma against him is unwarranted.
      - SerLava 10y ago
        At what point should the media be biased against a person? How bad do they have to be before the media is given a free pass on being against that person? Is it never acceptable to you? If it's never acceptable for the media to be against a candidate, they're going to be completely worthless in a variety of situations.
savanaly 10y ago
Wouldn't this be the sort of indirect, gut level factor that betting markets would capture better than anything else? And they have Trump winning at around 15-20%.
docdeek 10y ago
Sounds like you are proposing something similar to the Bradley Effect. From wiki, it was suggested that "white voters give inaccurate polling responses for fear that, by stating their true preference, they will open themselves to criticism of racial motivation. Members of the public may feel under pressure to provide an answer that is deemed to be more publicly acceptable, or 'politically correct'. The reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well." It's not a white/black choice this time around but the social exclusion in some circles of people who support Trump might see something similar in play. That said, it would need to be a pretty big effect to make a difference if the gap is really 6 or 7 points. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect
prostoalex 10y ago
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of-trump-country http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of... "So when they see that the media élite is driven out of their mind at the success of Donald Trump it makes them want to root for him. It’s like giving the middle finger to the rest of the country."
hprotagonist 10y ago
>My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-probably-arent-lying-to-pollsters/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-probabl... http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-could-the-polls-be-missing/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-could-the-polls-be-... Probably not.

crocowhile 10y ago

Look into the "shy tory factor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor People are more likely to lie about their voting intentions when the media create a climate of moral stigma around their candidate. I am sure this is going to happen in the uk too. The Democrats have run the wrong campaign.

Cshelton 10y ago
Ahh, exactly. I think this kind of thing is quite dangerous. When people become afraid to say what they think and/or get berated when they do, it's a very dangerous climate. For any side. All of the sudden people start to believe something they actually don't believe in because of this stigma. The current state of the media is the worst. Do I know how to fix it....I wish. We live in a world of headlines...And it's too easy to put almost any information you want to appeal to your viewer base, despite how inaccurate it may be. Tough problem. I saw a great "life pro tip" recently: If the News it telling you how to feel, it's not news. Always remember that.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zitterbewegung 10y ago

I've heard this from many sources but do you have anything to back up the assertion?

dangoor 10y ago

Why would people need to lie to the professional pollsters, though? If the election were held today and Trump won, it would be way outside of the margin of error on the polls.

VLM 10y ago
Garbage in, garbage out. No need for anyone to lie. Take for example the most recent Rasmussen showing Trump winning by 2%. To quote rasmussenreports.com: "Typically, calls are placed from 5 pm to 9 pm local time during the week." "After the surveys are completed, the raw data is processed through a weighting program to ensure that the sample reflects the overall population in terms of age, race, gender, political party, and other factors. The processing step is required because different segments of the population answer the phone in different ways. For example, women answer the phone more than men, older people are home more and answer more than younger people, and rural residents typically answer the phone more frequently than urban residents." Seriously, who answers spam calls at home between 5pm and 9pm? Anyone here? At all? rasmussen and all other poll operators keep their transfer function secret. Its entirely possible their transfer function bears no relationship with who it actually going to show up and vote in November. Lets pick on a semi-public transfer function from IDB. Their poll shows a dead tie Trump and Clinton both exactly 41%. However check the fine print about their transfer function "Party identification breakdown: (Unweighted) 261 Democrats/261 Republicans/275 Independents; (Weighted) 291/235/271." Seriously, they believe 23% of republicans are going to stay home on voting day? Seriously? I mean when I was a kid, even Pravda would have been embarrassed to publish something like that. Obviously the editorial board saw a Trump win in the results and ordered the Republican weighting decreased until the printable result was a tie at worst. Pew claimed in 2015 "When the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 48% either identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 39% identify as Republicans or lean Republican. The gap in leaned party affiliation has held fairly steady since 2009, when Democrats held a 13-point advantage (50% to 37%)." So Pew implies the IDB transfer function should be wildly different, something like 48%/39%/13% than what they actually used to "surprisingly" provide a predetermined result. Note that for the actual vote in November, plus or minus the usual dead people always voting democratic, the transfer function is very close to 1:1. My vote is counted as one vote, not some weird fractional part of a vote depending on my race or whatever the polling companies are doing.

koolba 10y ago

> My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. Polls, friends, community, etc. I know quite a few in this camp. > It seems many communities, including SV, have tried to ostracize those with opposing viewpoints. Trump's strength is built on that, whether an individual will be public about it or not. I read somewhere (sorry no source) that this election has seen the fewest bumped stickers/yard signs in recent history. I'd believe that. It'd be a combination of people not actually liking Clinton enough to want to show support and people being scared of actively showing support for Trump. The Clinton camp has done a decent job of bucketing all Trump supporters as racists assholes so it naturally makes it uncomfortable for people to voice their support. I'm pretty sure that's working as intended.

Finnucane 10y ago

If that were true, then down-ticket Republicans wouldn't be seeing as much of a sag in their support. And that wouldn't account for the narrow margins in states where the Republicans usually have stronger positions. And, there's still a fairly high level of undecideds and 3rd-party voters who might switch late (as usually happens)--polls seem to be indicating that these are swinging favorably to Clinton, and not to Trump.

Ensorceled 10y ago

That's the Brexit Theory. We'll see if it applies to Trump.

bko 10y ago
Prior to the vote, the polls were at a dead-heat meaning the outcome was within margin of error. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/britain-s-eu-referendum http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/britain...

bko 10y ago

The exact same thing has been said about 2008 in regards to Obama's popularity in popular media and the idea that it was socially unacceptable to oppose him. It was wrong then and the final outcome closely resembled the polls leading up to the election [0]. I suspect this theory is wrong in this case as well. [0] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/natio...

artursapek 10y ago
I don't think the media was colluding against McCain the way they are against Trump. There's a real stigma being created about supporting Trump.
- nkozyra 10y ago
  > There's a real stigma being created about supporting Trump. Would you consider this unwarranted? Not necessarily in a political sense, but by way of the man's earned & self-professed reputation.
  - artursapek 10y ago
    Don't get me wrong - Trump has certainly earned negative attention on his own. But the DNC has worked with the supposedly "unbiased" media to focus a disproportionate amount of negative energy on him, and they've hired people to harass and assault his supporters. These are dirty tactics they've employed to try to win the election. So yes, the incredible amount of stigma against him is unwarranted.
    - SerLava 10y ago
      At what point should the media be biased against a person? How bad do they have to be before the media is given a free pass on being against that person? Is it never acceptable to you? If it's never acceptable for the media to be against a candidate, they're going to be completely worthless in a variety of situations.

savanaly 10y ago

Wouldn't this be the sort of indirect, gut level factor that betting markets would capture better than anything else? And they have Trump winning at around 15-20%.

docdeek 10y ago

Sounds like you are proposing something similar to the Bradley Effect. From wiki, it was suggested that "white voters give inaccurate polling responses for fear that, by stating their true preference, they will open themselves to criticism of racial motivation. Members of the public may feel under pressure to provide an answer that is deemed to be more publicly acceptable, or 'politically correct'. The reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well." It's not a white/black choice this time around but the social exclusion in some circles of people who support Trump might see something similar in play. That said, it would need to be a pretty big effect to make a difference if the gap is really 6 or 7 points. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect

prostoalex 10y ago

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of-trump-country http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of... "So when they see that the media élite is driven out of their mind at the success of Donald Trump it makes them want to root for him. It’s like giving the middle finger to the rest of the country."

hprotagonist 10y ago

>My theory, many people are actually voting for Trump, for whatever reason it may be, but they will not tell others. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-probably-arent-lying-to-pollsters/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-probabl... http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-could-the-polls-be-missing/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-could-the-polls-be-... Probably not.