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There's a pretty clear test of whether a pollster is about reporting or influencing: the partisanship of their errors. Neutral pollsters have differences with t
by delichon 2y ago
There's a pretty clear test of whether a pollster is about reporting or influencing: the partisanship of their errors. Neutral pollsters have differences with the results randomly distributed across parties. Propagandists have errors that favor their patrons. This essay leans on the magnitude of the errors, but that's less probative than their distribution.
Does any poll aggregator order by randomness of polling error?
- culi 2y agoThis mixes up accuracy with precision and 538 had written at length about this. There's a big difference between pollster bias correction vs rating. There are many pollsters that are pretty consistently +2D/R but are reliably off from the final result in that direction. These polls are actually extremely valuable once you make the correction in your model. Meanwhile, polls that can be off from the final result by a large amount but average out to about correct should not be trusted. This is a yellow flag for herding A pollster can have an A+ rating while having a very consistent bias in one direction or another. The rating is meant to capture consistency/honesty of methodology more than result
- ForTheKidz 2y agoThis doesn't account for poll bias that biases both parties, of course. Not all polling is designed to wage parties against each other: some is designed to pit parties against populace.
- aredox 2y agoExcept the methodology biases the response: phone-only vs. in-person for example.