7 ms·

Agreed with the points in OP. Though we did have the story that came out shortly after the election that apparently internal polling for the Harris campaign nev

Agreed with the points in OP. Though we did have the story that came out shortly after the election that apparently internal polling for the Harris campaign never showed her ahead [1]. Obviously it says in the article that they did eventually fight it to a dead heat, which is in-line with a 50-50 forecast, but I do wonder what, if anything, failed such that this key detail was never reported on publicly until after the election. As the article notes, public polls started appearing in late September showing Harris ahead, which they never saw internally. Are internal polls just that much better than public ones? Is the media just incentivized to report on the most interesting outcome (a dead heat)? [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/27/kamala-harris-advisers-internal-polling/76626278007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/...

t-3 2y ago
> As the article notes, public polls started appearing in late September showing Harris ahead, which they never saw internally. Are internal polls just that much better than public ones? Is the media just incentivized to report on the most interesting outcome (a dead heat)? Intentional bias for motivational purposes is a thing - it doesn't make any logical sense, but people want to vote for the winner.
- HKH2 2y ago
  Well, trying to have 'safe' opinions is not completely illogical. It's a survival strategy.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  People want to vote for whomever. People want to DONATE to winners.
roenxi 2y ago
Don't rule out Harris' internal polling just being bad and the public polling was superior. We're looking at a team whos message was "our opponent is a racist, homophobic, sexist, rapist, felonic avatar of Hitler" and then saw him gain margin which is quite remarkable. What did voters have to see in Harris' team for that to happen? They're clearly doing something wrong. If the team managed that I wouldn't assume their pollsters were a lone beacon of competence. It seems quite plausible they hired bad pollsters and their internal data was off.
- kubb 2y ago
  What they did wrong was picking the candidate - she wasn’t popular. It wasn’t the time to try this kind of candidate, but they did it because of their own priorities. It’s OK, they won’t learn. Democrats need to start nominating famous actors and influencers.
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    They had all of Hollywood this year and quite a lot of nonpolitcal content creators came out for Harris in the last days.
    - cwillu 2y ago
      Having hollywood endorse a candidate is not the same as having hollywood be a candidate.
      - ReptileMan 2y ago
        And who is the mythical hollywood figure untainted by the culture war that could pull voters from the other side. The only thing you have to do with any hollywood celebrity to thank their presidential campaign is just post screenshots of their Covid and BLM tweets. And if they don't have stupid Covid and BLM tweets then they will have antisemitic ones.
        DrFalkyn 2y ago
        Bill Maher
      - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
        Your point restated, nobody cares about endorsements.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    Michael Bloomberg already tried the "hey, I'm like that guy but without the wrong think" xerox strategy and it didn't go well. Mark Cuban has toyed with it too but keeps getting cold feet, maybe due to lack of confidence or maybe due to analysis that shows being Them-Lite rarely works. Trump's reality tv show is not a major part of what got him elected but if someone wants to fund and convince Mark Cuban to try a doppelganger campaign, a fool and his money are soon parted. Cuban seems to know better than to try with his own fortune.
rdtsc 2y ago
That is interesting. Presenting public poll results is not really about poll results, but about shaping opinion. The struggle with the media in general is between reporting on the reality that they see vs the reality they want to create. It's an infantile make-belief: "If I put my gloves on, it will start snowing". But, take a large outfit like WP or NYT and it could sort of work that way, too! But, this also doesn't disagree with the original article that there was a large margin of uncertainty. In that case, a newspaper had a choice of mentioning the uncertainty and emphasizing it, or presenting the 3% in favor or their candidate. I think they went with the latter. Also, when Bezos blocked WP from endorsing Harris, I always wondered if he had his own better polling results, and he was pretty sure Trump would win, or he just gambled. It's like there are these secret reliable set of poll results to which billionaires get access too, while the public gets the watered down version. Going by the article at hand, perhaps him or his team could better read the results and didn't drink the kool-aid.

t-3 2y ago

> As the article notes, public polls started appearing in late September showing Harris ahead, which they never saw internally. Are internal polls just that much better than public ones? Is the media just incentivized to report on the most interesting outcome (a dead heat)? Intentional bias for motivational purposes is a thing - it doesn't make any logical sense, but people want to vote for the winner.

HKH2 2y ago
Well, trying to have 'safe' opinions is not completely illogical. It's a survival strategy.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
People want to vote for whomever. People want to DONATE to winners.

roenxi 2y ago

Don't rule out Harris' internal polling just being bad and the public polling was superior. We're looking at a team whos message was "our opponent is a racist, homophobic, sexist, rapist, felonic avatar of Hitler" and then saw him gain margin which is quite remarkable. What did voters have to see in Harris' team for that to happen? They're clearly doing something wrong. If the team managed that I wouldn't assume their pollsters were a lone beacon of competence. It seems quite plausible they hired bad pollsters and their internal data was off.

kubb 2y ago
What they did wrong was picking the candidate - she wasn’t popular. It wasn’t the time to try this kind of candidate, but they did it because of their own priorities. It’s OK, they won’t learn. Democrats need to start nominating famous actors and influencers.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  They had all of Hollywood this year and quite a lot of nonpolitcal content creators came out for Harris in the last days.
  - cwillu 2y ago
    Having hollywood endorse a candidate is not the same as having hollywood be a candidate.
    - ReptileMan 2y ago
      And who is the mythical hollywood figure untainted by the culture war that could pull voters from the other side. The only thing you have to do with any hollywood celebrity to thank their presidential campaign is just post screenshots of their Covid and BLM tweets. And if they don't have stupid Covid and BLM tweets then they will have antisemitic ones.
      - DrFalkyn 2y ago
        Bill Maher
    - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
      Your point restated, nobody cares about endorsements.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  Michael Bloomberg already tried the "hey, I'm like that guy but without the wrong think" xerox strategy and it didn't go well. Mark Cuban has toyed with it too but keeps getting cold feet, maybe due to lack of confidence or maybe due to analysis that shows being Them-Lite rarely works. Trump's reality tv show is not a major part of what got him elected but if someone wants to fund and convince Mark Cuban to try a doppelganger campaign, a fool and his money are soon parted. Cuban seems to know better than to try with his own fortune.

rdtsc 2y ago

That is interesting. Presenting public poll results is not really about poll results, but about shaping opinion. The struggle with the media in general is between reporting on the reality that they see vs the reality they want to create. It's an infantile make-belief: "If I put my gloves on, it will start snowing". But, take a large outfit like WP or NYT and it could sort of work that way, too! But, this also doesn't disagree with the original article that there was a large margin of uncertainty. In that case, a newspaper had a choice of mentioning the uncertainty and emphasizing it, or presenting the 3% in favor or their candidate. I think they went with the latter. Also, when Bezos blocked WP from endorsing Harris, I always wondered if he had his own better polling results, and he was pretty sure Trump would win, or he just gambled. It's like there are these secret reliable set of poll results to which billionaires get access too, while the public gets the watered down version. Going by the article at hand, perhaps him or his team could better read the results and didn't drink the kool-aid.