A Florida area known for being a "hotbed of Trump support" is reportedly seeing a bump in enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday. As Trump and Harris gear up to face one another in November's election, each candidate has made an effort to make inroads on the territories typicall...
  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
    111·
    4 months ago

    Recognize that the data may be flawed. Polling is incredibly accurate, but only if you survey a simple random sample. And that is very difficult to do. It introduces a lot of difficulty in getting right answers. Some polling methodologies will try to manipulate the raw data and weight it to try and make it representative, but that introduces a whole host of problems.

    2016 and 2020 under predicted Trump’s popularity for instance, while 2022 under predicted Democrats’ popularity. We don’t know what the situation now.

    Polls are still useful, but you have to treat them with a grain of salt. What tends to be more accurate is changes within the same polling group over time.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 months ago

      Problem is that polling would have to have all the exact same behaviors as an actual election

      • The ballot boxes don’t come to the people, the people opt to go to the ballot boxes. So cold calling/mailing people means you’ve changed the engagement to include people that wouldn’t actually go out to vote. Some try to measure likelihood to vote, but if the reason is ‘laziness’, a lot of people are unlikely to admit they won’t vote.
      • Some population sees the polls as a strategic tool, and may modify their participation to advance what they think their outcome needs. Declare support for the opposing candidate to put the fear of losing into like-minded voters, for example.
      • People know the polls don’t actually decide anything, so even if they will vote, they may dismiss polls as a waste of their time. Or even being distrustful of the agenda behind the poll and decline to participate thinking that works best to undermine potentially malicious polling
      • People have more confidence in the ballot being secret than polling. If someone thinks their answer will be seen/overheard by a spouse, that may change their tune. If someone thinks something vile would actually be in their benefit, they may be reluctant to admit that, but happy to act on it at the ballot box.

      Now polls are better than “gut feelings” or “this person posted to social media their gut feelings”, but the ultimate answer is we have no way of accurate prediction, so don’t be encouraged or discouraged too much and just go vote.

    • FiniteBanjo
      32·
      4 months ago

      Polling is not an inferior source to your gut feelings.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
        11·
        4 months ago

        You need to look at the actual statistical science. If you find 45% support for something, but there’s a 3% margin of error with a 95% conference interval, then there’s a 95% chance that the true value is anywhere from 42-48%. And that’s with a perfect, simple random sample.

        It has its uses, but you have to be aware of its limitations and caveats.

        • FiniteBanjo
          11·
          4 months ago

          But whats the interval on shit you just make up? Probably not as good a source as the polling.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
            11·
            4 months ago

            Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? I’m saying that even a perfect sample will not necessarily lead to an accurate conclusion, and having a perfect sample is incredibly difficult on top of that.

            Now factor in a major event occurring, and people’s opinions and thoughts being in flux. To properly gauge mood, you need to give people time to process – hence why immediate polling is not helpful.

            You do realize that the person you originally responded to was saying that polls probably aren’t helpful right now, not that polls are universally useless?

            • FiniteBanjo
              11·
              4 months ago

              Check the context of this thread. Then my words will make more sense and your point reveals itself to be coping to reaffirm unscientific bias.