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Election polls are almost always right for the only ultimate answer that matters: who is going to win[0]. They also accurately predict the margin of victory. Sa

by Fezzik 6y ago

Election polls are almost always right for the only ultimate answer that matters: who is going to win[0]. They also accurately predict the margin of victory. Same link. Polls, in general, are typically measuring tendencies or preferences, which they also (tend to) accurately capture. So saying they are always wrong doesn’t really make sense, as they are not trying to be right in an absolute sense. The error is with the reader who misconstrues what the poll is measuring and how it is doing so. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_Unite... Edit: slight elaboration.

nl 6y ago
> Election polls are almost always right for the only ultimate answer that matters: who is going to win[0]. They also accurately predict the margin of victory. This isn't true in the US. Your own link shows not a single result since the 1984 where the error was under 1% for both candidates. They are usually somewhat accurate for the overall vote, but the results on state races haven't been great. That hasn't mattered until 2016 where it was a critical issue.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Even state polling in 2016 was pretty good, historically. The reason to think otherwise is that there was a specific error (non-college white voters swinging to R) that happened not to be tracked well (those voters don't respond as well to polling) nor accounted for (most pollsters didn't weight for education). And it happened to be most concentrated in a few states in the upper midwest that were close to the tipping point. AND it happened to be JUST ENOUGH to have predicted a very narrow (sub 1% in PA/WI/MI) win incorrectly. To wit: 2016 was a perfect storm. Swap any of those factors above and 538 would have been predicting a 50:50 race (instead of 70:30) at election day and Trump's very narrow victory would have been "correctly predicted". Assuming that's going to happen again seems a bit like magical thinking to me. Remember that in 2012 the polls were "wrong" in the opposite direction (undercounting Obama votes by a bit) and no one cared.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    If that's the case, the pollsters have an easy way to regain trust in their methodologies. They can simply reweight their 2016 data to ensure education sampling matches the population and show that they now predict 2016 correctly. Have any of them done so?
    - newacct583 6y ago
      People have done this analysis repeatedly, you just aren't reading it. And polling in 2018 was generally quite good. But again, there's nothing wrong with their "methodologies". Polling errors in 2016 were in fact not far from historical norms. Numerate consensus (c.f. 538) picked a likely but not certain Clinton victory and the result was an extremely narrow loss instead. That stuff happens. Unfortunately a bunch of people whose political desires hinge on this kind of error being present in all elections and always to the advantage of "the other side" never want to hear this analysis and so repeat the nonsense that "polls are always wrong". But they're not. They're just not as precise as we want. If the polls are exactly as wrong this year, and in the same direction, as they were in 2016 then Biden wins a solid victory. If they're as wrong as they were in 2012 then he wins a landslide with Texas and Georgia going blue.
      - lern_too_spel 6y ago
        You're arguing against a straw man. I never said that polls are always wrong. My political desires don't hinge on the current polls being wrong. I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries and failed to predict swing states and even some states that weren't considered swing states in the general election. You're right that I haven't read the analysis that you say exists. That's why I'm asking for it. Which pollsters have done the reweighting on their 2016 data and shown that they then align with reality?
        newacct583 6y ago
        Uh... polls reliably predicted Trump's win in the primaries long before anyone in the pundit class believed it. For months and months it was explained away as simple name recognition. But he was ahead the whole time. Honestly, you're misremembering this. Polls were not wrong in 2016 like you think they were. Just browse through the article history at 538, they really are the best source for this stuff.

by Fezzik 6y ago

nl 6y ago

> Election polls are almost always right for the only ultimate answer that matters: who is going to win[0]. They also accurately predict the margin of victory. This isn't true in the US. Your own link shows not a single result since the 1984 where the error was under 1% for both candidates. They are usually somewhat accurate for the overall vote, but the results on state races haven't been great. That hasn't mattered until 2016 where it was a critical issue.

newacct583 6y ago
Even state polling in 2016 was pretty good, historically. The reason to think otherwise is that there was a specific error (non-college white voters swinging to R) that happened not to be tracked well (those voters don't respond as well to polling) nor accounted for (most pollsters didn't weight for education). And it happened to be most concentrated in a few states in the upper midwest that were close to the tipping point. AND it happened to be JUST ENOUGH to have predicted a very narrow (sub 1% in PA/WI/MI) win incorrectly. To wit: 2016 was a perfect storm. Swap any of those factors above and 538 would have been predicting a 50:50 race (instead of 70:30) at election day and Trump's very narrow victory would have been "correctly predicted". Assuming that's going to happen again seems a bit like magical thinking to me. Remember that in 2012 the polls were "wrong" in the opposite direction (undercounting Obama votes by a bit) and no one cared.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  If that's the case, the pollsters have an easy way to regain trust in their methodologies. They can simply reweight their 2016 data to ensure education sampling matches the population and show that they now predict 2016 correctly. Have any of them done so?
  - newacct583 6y ago
    People have done this analysis repeatedly, you just aren't reading it. And polling in 2018 was generally quite good. But again, there's nothing wrong with their "methodologies". Polling errors in 2016 were in fact not far from historical norms. Numerate consensus (c.f. 538) picked a likely but not certain Clinton victory and the result was an extremely narrow loss instead. That stuff happens. Unfortunately a bunch of people whose political desires hinge on this kind of error being present in all elections and always to the advantage of "the other side" never want to hear this analysis and so repeat the nonsense that "polls are always wrong". But they're not. They're just not as precise as we want. If the polls are exactly as wrong this year, and in the same direction, as they were in 2016 then Biden wins a solid victory. If they're as wrong as they were in 2012 then he wins a landslide with Texas and Georgia going blue.
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      You're arguing against a straw man. I never said that polls are always wrong. My political desires don't hinge on the current polls being wrong. I'm simply asking a question about whether the pollsters have corrected their methodologies. There was clearly something wrong in 2016 when they repeatedly failed to predict the GOP primaries and failed to predict swing states and even some states that weren't considered swing states in the general election. You're right that I haven't read the analysis that you say exists. That's why I'm asking for it. Which pollsters have done the reweighting on their 2016 data and shown that they then align with reality?
      - newacct583 6y ago
        Uh... polls reliably predicted Trump's win in the primaries long before anyone in the pundit class believed it. For months and months it was explained away as simple name recognition. But he was ahead the whole time. Honestly, you're misremembering this. Polls were not wrong in 2016 like you think they were. Just browse through the article history at 538, they really are the best source for this stuff.