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Research has confirmed that people don't lie to pollsters in any meaningful way when asked their head to head preference. It's mentioned in the last graph of t

Research has confirmed that people don't lie to pollsters in any meaningful way when asked their head to head preference. It's mentioned in the last graph of the article. The crux of this article is rather than 'shy trump voters' there is simply a large amount of these Trump voters who will refuse to take a survey flat out.

colinmhayes 6y ago
Isn't trump voters refusing to take polls what everyone means when they say "shy trump voters"?
- PeterisP 6y ago
  As far as I understand, the traditional sense of "shy voter" is to describe your poll numbers (i.e. the people who did take the survey) which answered "undecided" when they were shy about their choice. This also goes hand in hand with things like observed differences in answers of in-person surveys when the person doing the survey is/isn't from the same demographic as the person being surveyed. A disproportional amount of people (after controlling for race/gender/income/education/etc) simply refusing to answer the survey has similar but conceptually different effect; one that (as the OP claims - perhaps they're mistaken) is new and had not been a significant factor before.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    If I didn't have five of them calling me every day, day after day, I might be more likely to answer. If half of them weren't push polls trying to disguise themselves as unbiased, I might be more likely to answer. As it is, though? No. Go away. All of you go away. You'll find out my opinion when I vote. Until then, leave me alone.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Those of us who don't live in a swing state don't have to deal with them nearly as much.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        I wish. I don't live in a swing state. (Though I guess I do live in a hotly-contested congressional district. In fact, it still hasn't been called.)
- pc86 6y ago
  No, "shy Trump voter" specifically means someone who says they are not voting for Trump (or undecided) then does so, because they're afraid to "admit" voting for him.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    Correct
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Not quite, it's a subtle nuance. The concept of a shy Trump supporter is that they're afraid of a stigma associated with admitting support for Trump. That is different than someone who just doesn't want to take a poll but may be perfectly happy to tell you their views if you struck up a conversation. My own observation is that over the last 4 years, Trump supporters have become ever more loud and proud of that support, not more shy.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    But the reason they're not taking the poll is because they don't want to admit support for Trump, right? Of course some are happy to tell everyone, but some aren't. Otherwise why is this concept of republicans responding to polls less just starting now with Trump?
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      No, not if the hypothesis of the article is correct: They have lower social trust & cooperation metrics, and are disinclined to answer any polls. As for why it started with Trump, there could be a few reasons, all speculation on my part: He may be attracting people who didn't vote much before, and these new voters are the sorts of people who have lower trust etc., and so don't answer polls. Personally though, I think it might be more that President Trump's messaging fosters & encourages a certain amount of distrust: Fake News, anything negative about him are lies, deep state conspiracies, other views aren't just disagreements but bad/treason/sedition, etc. If distrustful people don't answer polls, and President Trump has made his followers more distrustful, then his followers are now less likely to answer polls. Just a hypothesis though.
      - colinmhayes 6y ago
        Yea I agree, they need to find a new term I guess because it seems pretty clear that this is what's been happening to me at least. I guess my question was more along the lines of who doesn't think this was the issue? Seems so obvious that his conspiracy theory squad won't want to talk to pollsters. Plus energized dems are more willing than usual to talk. The 1% response rate is a crazy number. How could they possibly think they're getting a representative sample if only 1% of people respond and responding is a choice? If there's any correlation between predisposition to respond and preferred candidate they're fucked. And it's hard to believe there wouldn't be.
ihatethissite 6y ago
This reads to me as being in alignment with the parent comment to which it was posted as a response. "... voters who will refuse to take a survey flat out" is equivalent to "... simply tak[ing] a neutral, non-committal stance on almost every hot-button issue these days."
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Taking a neutral stance to the poller. That's not the same thing as taking a neutral stance on the issues.
Damorian 6y ago
"Pollsters say people don't lie to pollsters" is a bad argument. I ended up on some list and lied to every caller out of spite. These people are effectively telemarketers for corrupt propaganda companies interrupting my family at dinner. They don't deserve my honest opinion.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  The important thing isn't people lying to pollsters, its people lying to pollsters in a way that's coordinated with a particular demographic or voting block. If 10% of people surveyed, at random, lie to the pollsters and choose the "opposite" candidate out of spite, you'll actually see a sort of reversion to the mean compared to the actual opinions.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Assuming that people are lying at random. I would bet there is a significant correlation with voting habits -- particularly in this election cycle. Why wouldn't someone who holds the view that polls are corrupt and biased have their attitude towards answering them affected by that?
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > Why wouldn't someone who holds the view that polls are corrupt and biased have their attitude towards answering them affected by that? If your opinion was that polls were biased against your candidate, how would that make you answer? Is it more likely to make you answer in favor of your candidate, answer in favor of the other candidate, or go out of your way to participate in polls to "fight back" against the bias? You can invent a narrative that supports pretty much any activity. Only some of these narratives have any data behind them. As far as I'm aware the best-supported theory by data isn't that people intentionally lie, but that they simply don't participate in polls because they narrative pushed by republican campaigns is that the polls are always wrong. This is, we'll say, half true. What I'm interested in, now that the republican talking point is that the actual polls don't matter, since Democrats are stealing the election anyway, is if Republican turnout will similarly decrease.
Fnoord 6y ago
I guess I am not human, then. I'd lie to pollsters because I dislike the practice. It causes irrelevant news, and feeds into strategic voting. One distracts / causes pageviews, other one lowers the integrity of our democracy. My data can skew the accuracy of pollsters, however little that is, thereby hurting their interests. I am also open to lying to telemarketers as I despise their job. Perfect example of a Bullshit Job.

colinmhayes 6y ago

Isn't trump voters refusing to take polls what everyone means when they say "shy trump voters"?

PeterisP 6y ago
As far as I understand, the traditional sense of "shy voter" is to describe your poll numbers (i.e. the people who did take the survey) which answered "undecided" when they were shy about their choice. This also goes hand in hand with things like observed differences in answers of in-person surveys when the person doing the survey is/isn't from the same demographic as the person being surveyed. A disproportional amount of people (after controlling for race/gender/income/education/etc) simply refusing to answer the survey has similar but conceptually different effect; one that (as the OP claims - perhaps they're mistaken) is new and had not been a significant factor before.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  If I didn't have five of them calling me every day, day after day, I might be more likely to answer. If half of them weren't push polls trying to disguise themselves as unbiased, I might be more likely to answer. As it is, though? No. Go away. All of you go away. You'll find out my opinion when I vote. Until then, leave me alone.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Those of us who don't live in a swing state don't have to deal with them nearly as much.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I wish. I don't live in a swing state. (Though I guess I do live in a hotly-contested congressional district. In fact, it still hasn't been called.)
pc86 6y ago
No, "shy Trump voter" specifically means someone who says they are not voting for Trump (or undecided) then does so, because they're afraid to "admit" voting for him.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  Correct
ineedasername 6y ago
Not quite, it's a subtle nuance. The concept of a shy Trump supporter is that they're afraid of a stigma associated with admitting support for Trump. That is different than someone who just doesn't want to take a poll but may be perfectly happy to tell you their views if you struck up a conversation. My own observation is that over the last 4 years, Trump supporters have become ever more loud and proud of that support, not more shy.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  But the reason they're not taking the poll is because they don't want to admit support for Trump, right? Of course some are happy to tell everyone, but some aren't. Otherwise why is this concept of republicans responding to polls less just starting now with Trump?
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    No, not if the hypothesis of the article is correct: They have lower social trust & cooperation metrics, and are disinclined to answer any polls. As for why it started with Trump, there could be a few reasons, all speculation on my part: He may be attracting people who didn't vote much before, and these new voters are the sorts of people who have lower trust etc., and so don't answer polls. Personally though, I think it might be more that President Trump's messaging fosters & encourages a certain amount of distrust: Fake News, anything negative about him are lies, deep state conspiracies, other views aren't just disagreements but bad/treason/sedition, etc. If distrustful people don't answer polls, and President Trump has made his followers more distrustful, then his followers are now less likely to answer polls. Just a hypothesis though.
    - colinmhayes 6y ago
      Yea I agree, they need to find a new term I guess because it seems pretty clear that this is what's been happening to me at least. I guess my question was more along the lines of who doesn't think this was the issue? Seems so obvious that his conspiracy theory squad won't want to talk to pollsters. Plus energized dems are more willing than usual to talk. The 1% response rate is a crazy number. How could they possibly think they're getting a representative sample if only 1% of people respond and responding is a choice? If there's any correlation between predisposition to respond and preferred candidate they're fucked. And it's hard to believe there wouldn't be.

ihatethissite 6y ago

This reads to me as being in alignment with the parent comment to which it was posted as a response. "... voters who will refuse to take a survey flat out" is equivalent to "... simply tak[ing] a neutral, non-committal stance on almost every hot-button issue these days."

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Taking a neutral stance to the poller. That's not the same thing as taking a neutral stance on the issues.

Damorian 6y ago

"Pollsters say people don't lie to pollsters" is a bad argument. I ended up on some list and lied to every caller out of spite. These people are effectively telemarketers for corrupt propaganda companies interrupting my family at dinner. They don't deserve my honest opinion.

joshuamorton 6y ago
The important thing isn't people lying to pollsters, its people lying to pollsters in a way that's coordinated with a particular demographic or voting block. If 10% of people surveyed, at random, lie to the pollsters and choose the "opposite" candidate out of spite, you'll actually see a sort of reversion to the mean compared to the actual opinions.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Assuming that people are lying at random. I would bet there is a significant correlation with voting habits -- particularly in this election cycle. Why wouldn't someone who holds the view that polls are corrupt and biased have their attitude towards answering them affected by that?
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Why wouldn't someone who holds the view that polls are corrupt and biased have their attitude towards answering them affected by that? If your opinion was that polls were biased against your candidate, how would that make you answer? Is it more likely to make you answer in favor of your candidate, answer in favor of the other candidate, or go out of your way to participate in polls to "fight back" against the bias? You can invent a narrative that supports pretty much any activity. Only some of these narratives have any data behind them. As far as I'm aware the best-supported theory by data isn't that people intentionally lie, but that they simply don't participate in polls because they narrative pushed by republican campaigns is that the polls are always wrong. This is, we'll say, half true. What I'm interested in, now that the republican talking point is that the actual polls don't matter, since Democrats are stealing the election anyway, is if Republican turnout will similarly decrease.

Fnoord 6y ago

I guess I am not human, then. I'd lie to pollsters because I dislike the practice. It causes irrelevant news, and feeds into strategic voting. One distracts / causes pageviews, other one lowers the integrity of our democracy. My data can skew the accuracy of pollsters, however little that is, thereby hurting their interests. I am also open to lying to telemarketers as I despise their job. Perfect example of a Bullshit Job.