Polls are meaningless. VOTE!
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
9 points (76.5% liked)
Political Discussion and Commentary
181 readers
1169 users here now
A place to discuss politics and offer political commentary. Self posts are preferred, but links to current events and news are allowed. Opinion pieces are welcome on a case by case basis, and discussion of and disagreement about issues is encouraged!
The intent is for this community to be an area for open & respectful discussion on current political issues, news & events, and that means we all have a responsibility to be open, honest, and sincere. We place as much emphasis on good content as good behavior, but the latter is more important if we want to ensure this community remains healthy and vibrant.
Content Rules:
- Self posts preferred.
- Opinion pieces and editorials are allowed on a case by case basis.
- No spam or self promotion.
- Do not post grievances about other communities or their moderators.
Commentary Rules
- Don’t be a jerk or do anything to prevent honest discussion.
- Stay on topic.
- Don’t criticize the person, criticize the argument.
- Provide credible sources whenever possible.
- Report bad behavior, please don’t retaliate. Reciprocal bad behavior will reflect poorly on both parties.
- Seek rule enforcement clarification via private message, not in comment threads.
- Abide by Lemmy's terms of service (attacks on other users, privacy, discrimination, etc).
Please try to up/downvote based on contribution to discussion, not on whether you agree or disagree with the commenter.
Partnered Communities:
• Politics
founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
I agree 100%. I'd go one step further and argue it's excitement that wins elections. Regardless of each candidates' politics; it seems apparent now that Kamala is the agent of change, and her opponent is the status quo.
The funny thing is 3 months ago I would have said the exact opposite (Biden/Trump). Political winds change fast...
National polls don't tell us much due to the electoral college.
Whether AL is +2 Trump or +20 Trump has no impact on who wins.
That's a good point. Are there any models out there that "compensate" for that? I know Nate Silver's one has been popular but I don't know if that factors in the electoral weighing.
Perhaps the 538 simulation projector would be along those lines?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
ah yeah, I had forgot about that. He was dead wrong in 2016 ;) I think he had Clinton at like 80% chance of winning, but I believe whatever errors they made back then were mostly corrected since.
Silver isn't with 538 anymore, I think his model and the 538 model have the same basis though, probably diverging a bit since he left?
In any case, the point that an 80% chance of X is no guarantee of X got pounded home, don't you think? :)
his model shows Harris 48.9% / Trump 44.8% right now.
Very hard to say. Polling has been basically broken for around six years now.
Looking back, 2016 was a harbinger of things to come. The national polls were still solid (Clinton won the national popular vote, after all), but the state-level polls were pretty bad. They retooled in 2017 and 2018, and did better, but at the same time, land lines were starting to vanish fast, making polling harder and harder.
Since 2018, my sense has been that pollsters don't really have a solution. The population that will answer unknown calls on their cell phones skews older, but young people have been showing up to vote. There's only so much you can do with weighting and assumptions to massage a non-representative sample into something useful, and I wonder if we've hit the point where the polls are simply going to remain as many as ten points off from reality because of it.
+8.
People who dismiss or disregard polling are idiots, which is like, most of the people who respond to posts related to polling.
50/50 nationally for "Democratic candidate" versus Trump is +5.
+10 is "clearly winning, but still a chance" for the D.
+15 is blowout, blue wave.
Harris has that potential but her missteps are going to cost her with the only donors that matter, the people who donate their vote. However, she's been like, uncannily savvy with regards to most of her maneuvers. I think she sees her'self boxed in on Gaza so her answer is "steady as she goes". Problem there is that Israel is specifically stoking a regional war to put D's into this position. So while it is a damned if you do/ damned if you don't when it comes to pulling Netanyahu's leash, she's doubly damned is the US "don't" in this case. Regardless, she's been incredibly strong otherwise.
I have her at 65% to win right now if you are playing the odds. I expect her to be at 85% the day of. If she can get to +10 to +15 range, she bumps into the 90%-97% to win range. This is of course for the stochastic models. Process based models tell a different story, which comes almost entirely down to Israel/ Gaza. Basically she can't win with out MI/ MN/ WI, and enough uncommitted put their number up to prevent a D from winning those states. The DNC not allowing a Gazan to at least speak seems like SUCH an unforced error, it seems almost unlikely to have come out of the Harris camp. Its not clear to me why or how you would make such a stupid error when you NEEED to lock those states up. Anyways, process based models are closer to 50/50 for MI/ WI because of this issue. This also assumes if she doesn't take MI/ WI she also hasn't taken GA/ NC.
Anyways. +8 nationally is where I have her being on election day, which is a 85% chance to win.