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Even the polls were cooked. E.g. to improve the odds of polls fitting the narrative, democratic leaning pollsters would disproportionately sample minorities kno

Even the polls were cooked. E.g. to improve the odds of polls fitting the narrative, democratic leaning pollsters would disproportionately sample minorities known to vote predominantly democratic. The patron saint of pollsters, Nate Silver, was consistently wrong about everything all the way through the campaign. Now, if his main goal wasn't to peddle a particular narrative, one would expect him to make corrections to his models after getting things wrong, but no, he sacrificed his professional integrity instead. I'm sure this is not the first time this happened, but this year it was particularly obvious, and I don't really trust the polls at all anymore except when it comes to completely non-political topics.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I was about to point out that your use of "oversampling" didn't refer to the standard statistical technique, but rather to the right-wing conspiracy theory about polling being intentionally altered, but you've pretty much made that clear with your reply. I think this first became a "thing" back in 2012, when the polls were predicting Obama to beat Romney, and that just didn't seem like it could be true, and it was blamed on "oversampling". Also, Nate Silver isn't a pollster, he just uses their output as input to his models.
- general_ai 10y ago
  https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26551 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26551
  - rokosbasilisk 10y ago
    wow. Unbelievable. This kind of collusion between pollsters and campaigns should be illegal.
    - general_ai 10y ago
      We'll need to conduct a poll to see what people think about this... oh wait.
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      Campaigns often conduct private polling that they pay for, why should this be illegal? I don't see anything wrong in that email - all it means is that they wanted to get more resolution for certain demographics, I think.
      - general_ai 10y ago
        No, they didn't want "more resolution" for "certain demographics". They wanted these demographics overrepresented in the final sample, without disclosing the fact they are overrepresented. These are polls for external consumption, the kinds you'd then find on CNN, HuffPo and MSNBC. I'm sure they also had their own private polls which, while probably also cooked, were more accurate.
        zigzigzag 10y ago
        Is there more context here I'm missing? The emails don't say much, but they do refer to "our polling".
        ZeroGravitas 10y ago
        "Donald Trump absurdly claims Clinton campaign chairman rigged the polls." Politifact rating: Pants on Fire! http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/25/donald-trump/trump-absurd-claims-podesta-rigged-polls/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/... Just another officially sanctioned conspiracy theory.
mikeash 10y ago
Nate Silver gave the eventual winner a 30% chance of victory, and his prediction for the popular vote was off by only 1% for Trump and 0.5% for Clinton. That's a damned good job if you ask me. I can't fathom people who look at the results of this election and conclude that the polls are all horrible. They got very close to what happened. Many places took those poll results and interpreted them far beyond what they should have, saying Clinton was a lock when she wasn't, but that's a different matter. (It seems like they assumed that errors in swing state polls would be uncorrelated, thus vastly underestimating the chances that a lot of them would flip together.) If you were trying to sway the election for Clinton, talking about how her victory is assured would be a bad way to go about it. That just encourages her voters to stay home. If the polls were biased that way, and if it was a deliberate attempt to sway the election, then if anything it would be an attempt to sway it for Trump. Which really doesn't seem likely at all.
- general_ai 10y ago
  Silver gave Trump 2% chance of winning the primary. He also wheeled out this doozie a day before the election when it was pretty clear that Trump knew he would win. You don't do 5 rallies a day if you know you're losing. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
  - mikeash 10y ago
    He screwed up in the primaries, and admitted as much. Did you intend to link to something else? That "doozie" is just the final projection for the 2016 results whose numbers I referred to above.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  They came out with the wrong result and that is all that matters. I don't care how close a surgeon is to cut out my tumour, either it is gone or not.
  - mikeash 10y ago
pmyteh 10y ago
For the polls to be cooked you would need the active participation of literally hundreds of different polling companies, coupled with none of the employees of those pollsters deciding to reveal the vast left-wing conspiracy. I don't think most of those complaining about the polls have any idea just how hard polling is to get right, even if you're being completely honest. There is a shit load of educated guesswork in the turnout modeling and the demographic adjustments, and that the polls get as close add they do is a minor miracle. Go and read the British Polling Council postmortem of the 2015 General Election failings if you want to look at the gory details: it's really quite transparent. Not to say there aren't careless and partisan pollsters in the world: there are lots of both. But there's no need for conspiracy theories when the reality looks like this.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

I was about to point out that your use of "oversampling" didn't refer to the standard statistical technique, but rather to the right-wing conspiracy theory about polling being intentionally altered, but you've pretty much made that clear with your reply. I think this first became a "thing" back in 2012, when the polls were predicting Obama to beat Romney, and that just didn't seem like it could be true, and it was blamed on "oversampling". Also, Nate Silver isn't a pollster, he just uses their output as input to his models.

general_ai 10y ago
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26551 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26551
- rokosbasilisk 10y ago
  wow. Unbelievable. This kind of collusion between pollsters and campaigns should be illegal.
  - general_ai 10y ago
    We'll need to conduct a poll to see what people think about this... oh wait.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Campaigns often conduct private polling that they pay for, why should this be illegal? I don't see anything wrong in that email - all it means is that they wanted to get more resolution for certain demographics, I think.
    - general_ai 10y ago
      No, they didn't want "more resolution" for "certain demographics". They wanted these demographics overrepresented in the final sample, without disclosing the fact they are overrepresented. These are polls for external consumption, the kinds you'd then find on CNN, HuffPo and MSNBC. I'm sure they also had their own private polls which, while probably also cooked, were more accurate.
      - zigzigzag 10y ago
        Is there more context here I'm missing? The emails don't say much, but they do refer to "our polling".
        ZeroGravitas 10y ago
        "Donald Trump absurdly claims Clinton campaign chairman rigged the polls." Politifact rating: Pants on Fire! http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/25/donald-trump/trump-absurd-claims-podesta-rigged-polls/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/... Just another officially sanctioned conspiracy theory.

mikeash 10y ago

Nate Silver gave the eventual winner a 30% chance of victory, and his prediction for the popular vote was off by only 1% for Trump and 0.5% for Clinton. That's a damned good job if you ask me. I can't fathom people who look at the results of this election and conclude that the polls are all horrible. They got very close to what happened. Many places took those poll results and interpreted them far beyond what they should have, saying Clinton was a lock when she wasn't, but that's a different matter. (It seems like they assumed that errors in swing state polls would be uncorrelated, thus vastly underestimating the chances that a lot of them would flip together.) If you were trying to sway the election for Clinton, talking about how her victory is assured would be a bad way to go about it. That just encourages her voters to stay home. If the polls were biased that way, and if it was a deliberate attempt to sway the election, then if anything it would be an attempt to sway it for Trump. Which really doesn't seem likely at all.

general_ai 10y ago
Silver gave Trump 2% chance of winning the primary. He also wheeled out this doozie a day before the election when it was pretty clear that Trump knew he would win. You don't do 5 rallies a day if you know you're losing. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
- mikeash 10y ago
  He screwed up in the primaries, and admitted as much. Did you intend to link to something else? That "doozie" is just the final projection for the 2016 results whose numbers I referred to above.
tomjen3 10y ago
They came out with the wrong result and that is all that matters. I don't care how close a surgeon is to cut out my tumour, either it is gone or not.
- mikeash 10y ago

pmyteh 10y ago

For the polls to be cooked you would need the active participation of literally hundreds of different polling companies, coupled with none of the employees of those pollsters deciding to reveal the vast left-wing conspiracy. I don't think most of those complaining about the polls have any idea just how hard polling is to get right, even if you're being completely honest. There is a shit load of educated guesswork in the turnout modeling and the demographic adjustments, and that the polls get as close add they do is a minor miracle. Go and read the British Polling Council postmortem of the 2015 General Election failings if you want to look at the gory details: it's really quite transparent. Not to say there aren't careless and partisan pollsters in the world: there are lots of both. But there's no need for conspiracy theories when the reality looks like this.