This excellent thread made my day, and is exactly what I've been screaming about. The media narrative of Dems in disarray is driven by polls which are not properly modeling the post-Dobbs electorate based on the five actual elections since. https://t.co/3ReGFJr0hp
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) October 29, 2022
Half of the electorate has had a fundamental right stripped away. It would be illogical if those people DIDN'T react with intensity. As George Carlin would say, we might be experiencing vu deja; the feeling that nothing like this has ever happened before.
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) October 29, 2022
Halo! you can read it here: https://t.co/1QOg5rODqu Enjoy :) 🤖
— Thread Reader Unroll Helper (@UnrollHelper) October 30, 2022
Here are the percentages of polls released by GOP allied groups ranked A/B in @fivethirtyeight of all polls taken in the state in October:
AZ – 75%
GA – 55%
NV – 60%
OH – 50%
PA – 60%
WA – 50%and in states they think are not competitive:
CO – 20%
NC – 29%
WI – 0%2/
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 30, 2022
How much of a difference could this GOP manipulation of the averages be having?
There is a 3.3 pt difference between the generic on Real Clear and one without any partisan polling.
Media has to wake up here and stop getting played. 4/https://t.co/yo9wYtJujS
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 30, 2022
We have to move beyond polling now. It's a close election. We are getting a lot of early vote data. That's real data not bullshit flood the zone GOP polling. https://t.co/19ulQzVKKK
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 28, 2022
Baud
I don’t know what will happen, but I’m curious to see if the polls change much in the last week as pollsters focus on being able to say they were accurate. If their final polls are close, no one’s going to remember the prior polls.
Suzanne
I am hoping that the good news out of Brazil is an omen.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I’m not much for omens, but hard to say because the incumbent there was fascist, and our incumbent is antifascist.
Cameron
@Baud: Joe Biden, antifa?
Baud
@Cameron:
Have you ever seen Biden and antifa in the same room together?
Tony G
I don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’, but there’s something that’s obvious to me that I seldom see discussed: Polling has been essentially useless for at least the past ten years. I say that because I assume that the way that I use my phone is typical of most Americans. Because of the daily deluge of telemarking spam calls, I just don’t answer the phone (not land-line, which I still have, and not cell-phone) unless I recognize the caller. I assume that if the unanswered call is important, that I will get a voice-mail message which I can then use to call back. I’m pretty sure that most people do this. Therefore, if a pollster calls me I will never hear the call. As a result, it’s been at least a decade since I’ve participated in a poll.
Burnspbesq
Good news from Brazil, and massive anti-government demonstrations in Iran and Hungary. Something is happening.
Baud
@Burnspbesq:
I didn’t know about Hungary. Orban just recently won big.
Cameron
@Baud: …and by tomorrow night Tucker Carlson will be ‘just asking questions’….
scav
If polls & polling operations are merely advertising and PR by other means, there’s no reason for them to adjust late in the season so as to be proved correct. They’re disposable.
Eolirin
@Burnspbesq: The Hungary protests seem to be anti-inflation, so…
I really hope Iran ends up with a better government though.
Burnspbesq
@Baud:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-23/budapest-protest-swells-to-80-000-to-support-hungary-s-teachers
Baud
@Eolirin:
Hungary’s inflation rate is 20%.
Our people don’t realize how fortunate we have it.
Alison Rose
@Suzanne: Same. Also wondering if Bolsonaro is gonna try to arrange his own Jan 6 down there.
ColoradoGuy
Considering the deluge of spam calls on both land-lines and mobile phones, and the numerous blocking tools in use, surely the people who actually respond to an unknown caller must be extremely unrepresentative? And of that minority of odd ducks, how many are pranksters?
S cerevisiae
@Tony G: I use my phone the same way, I don’t answer unless I know the caller assuming that if they know me they will recognize my voice from my non specific voicemail message and leave me one.
Suzanne
@ColoradoGuy: I’ve gotten polled three times in the last four months. All by text. I ignore all of the calls.
Suzanne
@Baud: I am not a believer in omens, either, but I often do not know WTF I am talking about, and I would like a good outcome.
Baud
@Suzanne:
You’re keeping us in the game!
eclare
@Tony G: Same here, if I don’t recognize the number I don’t answer my cell. I haven’t had a landline in maybe twenty years?
Martin
Polls are busted. Nobody has a functioning likely voter model. Nobody.
But at the same time, nobody knows *how* they’re busted. In favor of Dems? GOP? Only in certain kinds of races? In certain locations?
So the best advice I can give is assume the polls are wrong, without any suggestion of wrong good or wrong bad.
eclare
@Alison Rose: My thoughts as well. Will Brazil TFG try to stage a coup?
Sure Lurkalot
Setting up for contesting the results if Dems win or even if they outperform their shitty push polls.
Baud
@Martin:
They’re busted in favor of drama.
Martin
@Cameron: Yeah. Antifa means a lot more than just wearing black and punching Nazis. The Nazi-punchers are an important part of Antifa, but not the most important part.
I mean, I think the whole reason why Biden even ran for president was to block fascism. He was quite clear spoken on that.
jackmac
Not only do I NOT answer calls from numbers I don’t know, I have blocked calls from dozens of numbers (including a couple — in retrospect — that came from pollsters). Reactions above as well as anecdotal evidence makes me wonder who the hell even answers a phone (landline or mobile) these days. I don’t know how pollsters maintain a credible business model, not to mention accurate readings. I think part of their formula now is to simply make shit up.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Everyone I know expects us to get beaten badly. I’ve stopped talking to them about it
trollhattan
@Burnspbesq: Thank god Lula wins. Bolsonaro isn’t a threat just to Brazilians, he’s a threat to humanity and the planet. Good riddance, trash.
Bonus points if Glem has a major sad.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And THAT’S why the polls stay out there, and why they’re blasted all over all media. Just another voter suppression tool.
Martin
@Baud: I don’t think so. I think all of the reputable pollsters (most of them) are doing their best. But building a likely voter model is fucking hard under the best circumstances.
I think there’s a bit more drama in the poll questions, at least by the more casual pollsters.
My favorite pollster is USC <spit> Dornslife/LATimes because it’s a longitudinal poll. Rather than try and build a likely voter model that is predictive of the election, they poll the same population over a long period and focus on how attitudes change among that fixed population. It’s helpful to gauging how voter attitudes are changing over time. Much more useful, IMO.
Eolirin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Make sure they vote at least. ><
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: PBS Snooze Hour was reporting like the Red Wave is a done deal. The MSM definitely has a thumb on the scale.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Exactly. They all voted already, and one of them is busy distributing info to voters who requested a mail ballot and haven’t returned it. But they expect to lose badly
eclare
Joe Biden has already released a statement recognizing Lula as the winner of a free, fair, and credible election.
Starting to think Joe knows what he is doing./s
cain
@Baud:
And horse race. The guy upstairs claims that that media is being played. I think they know exactly what they are doing.
schrodingers_cat
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Agreed. I tune out all the polls.
Chris T.
@eclare: Depending on my mood, I’ll answer unknown phone calls. If it’s a sales pitch, I give them a sales pitch! “We’ve been trying to contact you about your extended warranty…”
(The reaction from scammers, presuming you can get a live human, is funny. You can tell when you have a computer call because it’s oh so polite and keeps to its script when you start with the non-sequitur responses.)
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I’m not comfortable with all this bashing of the polls. Polish people are as good and decent as any other group.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@eclare: I wake up every day with less anxiety than otherwise because Joe Biden is in the Oval Office.
Ever grateful for this aspect of the timeline…
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@schrodingers_cat: Makes me angry.
REALLY want to see a beatdown at the polls severe enough for all the doomsayers to cry on air. Petty? Probably. NOT SORRY
Sanjeevs
I spoke to a guy who ran a troll farm in SE Asia.
One of their most successful tactics is to create or rent an FB page/ group which is unrelated to politics (Sports club fan page, pop star fan page etc) Then they gradually introduce comments backing their candidate and use their moderating powers to shut out dissenters. Mind conditioning was his term for it.
In the last few days they really ramp up the political content.
This might be why Brexit, Trump etc show last minute surges in support.
Cameron
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Pollish. You misspelled Pollish.
eclare
@Sanjeevs: Interesting.
piratedan
to be fair, isn’t this the GOP modus operandi…. instead of trying to win votes on the “merits” of their policy positions, notions of fair play are quaint; so they use misinformation, voter intimidation, foreign money, lies and anything and anyone that money can buy.
they obviously don’t believe in the system itself, or rather, they believe in keeping the system where they can do all this shit and get away with it.
artem1s
Seems to me the media, GOP, and pundits pushing this “R’s have a lock on the House” is not going to be good for R turnout. Maybe it’s great for GOP fundraising. And for of course close the horse race always generates more clicks for media – and I imagine ad buys. But telling your voters they are owning the libs already – does that drive turnout of the average disengaged MAGAt? We know they will put money into guns and ridiculous yard signs and truck rallies. But will they remember to take the time to actually go to the polls?
Suzanne
@Baud: I meant to say “polled three times in the last four weeks”. Holy polls, Batman.
Ohio Mom
I was getting a lot of poll calls on the land line until about three weeks ago. I answered around 6-8 of them. Only a couple were push polls.
Much prefer when it’s a human but I also did computerized ones, wondering the whole time how pestering the same old lady makes for accuracy. I guess they all got tired of me because they’ve stopped.
I don’t know what to believe or hope about our chances so I don’t let myself get too excited or too depressed.
schrodingers_cat
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Same here. I watch the Snooze Hour may be once a week beyond their headlines. Snooze Hour has definitely become more pro-Republican since Jim Lehrer retired.
Anoniminous
What 2020’s Election Poll Errors Tell Us About the Accuracy of Issue Polling
We will know on Nov 8 how well the pollsters polling screens matched the actual electorate. In the meantime I relegate polling to astrology; a source of minor amusement every now & then and never to be taken seriously.
frosty
I did my first canvassing shift today for PADems. About 24% of the households were home. First stop was a black woman who was very excited about the election, already voted (straight D) and thanked me. She was typical of the black women. I had a couple of undecideds, all guys. Go figure.
Everyone had already voted, were waiting for their mail ballots, or knew where the polling place was.
Tony G
@eclare: My sons (now in their thirties) never got landlines, and almost certainly never will. It’s my understand that that phenomenon, in and of itself, has wreaking havoc on polling because pollsters can no longer deduce from the phone number where the person lives. (For example, one of my sons moved to San Diego more than twelve years ago, but his cell phone number still has an area code and exchange number that falsely indicate Bergen County, New Jersey.). It’s a real problem that I seldom see discussed. My theory is that polling companies and the “consultants” who use them are well aware of the fact that polling is largely useless these days, but they don’t want to advertise that fact because it would slow down the flow of money. Polling has largely become like TruCoat — money spent for no value.
NobodySpecial
Good news. Every early vote we bank now is one that they can’t take away by screwing with the polling places on election day like they always do.
Tony G
@eclare: My sons (now in their thirties) never got landlines, and almost certainly never will. It’s my understand that that phenomenon, in and of itself, has wreaking havoc on polling because pollsters can no longer deduce from the phone number where the person lives. (For example, one of my sons moved to San Diego more than twelve years ago, but his cell phone number still has an area code and exchange number that falsely indicate Bergen County, New Jersey.). It’s a real problem that I seldom see discussed. My theory is that polling companies and the “consultants” who use them are well aware of the fact that polling is largely useless these days, but they don’t want to advertise that fact because it would slow down the flow of money. Polling has largely become like TruCoat — money spent for no value. x
Cacti
@Alison Rose: I’ll be glad for Lula’s victory if January 1 comes and Bolsonaro leaves quietly.
But the moment is ripe for trouble.
Stacib
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My mantra this past week has been Don’t Borrow Trouble. Nobody knows what will happen, and I’m refusing to get worked up until after we see results.
Tony G
@Tony G: Obligatory … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2LLB9CGfLs
WaterGirl
@frosty: You did it! Dan would be proud. :-) Go you!
Suzanne
I get text blasts about campaigns in both PA and AZ, plus Beto, state and national Dems, and John Fetterman’s dogs. Who are very cute.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
A spot just opened up in the Rogues’ Gallery of images of nasty international political figures that I keep. Mood: improved. :-)
eclare
@Tony G: I had not thought of the area code/moving issue, but that’s true of my friends as well. They move and don’t change their number. Good point and one more reason not to trust polls
Now TruCoat…you gotta get the undercoating!
James E Powell
@frosty:
Awesome news, frosty. Keep hope alive!
eclare
@Tony G: One of my faves!
Princess
I just read an Erick Erickson sub stack piece about how he knows there’s a red wave even if you leave aside the polling. Most of his argument was based on claims that Dems were cancelling ad buys in what we’d hope are competitive districts to protect people in places we’d think were pretty solid blue. Problem is, there was not one number, not one link, not one piece of evidence to support his claims. Now he might have inside GOP evidence that they’re being more aggressive, but he’s not going to get inside word on Dem buys and cancelled ad buys. So I dug around the internet and found…nothing. Now who knows, maybe he’s right, maybe he does know things the press can’t be bothered to report on. But questions, I have them.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@schrodingers_cat: Truth is, they’ve all shifted. I no longer watch any of it on a daily basis; if I remember I’ll catch Rachel’s Monday show (and her podcast is educational AND terrifying). Other than that, I’ll watch O’Donnell.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Tony G: I had to go look up TruCoat and it does seem spectacularly useless.
Tony G
@NobodySpecial: And that’s why every Republican-dominated state is trying to shut down early voting (and mail-in voting).
Tony G
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Useless — but he knocked $100 off the price!
StringOnAStick
@eclare: Brazil TFG has been doing the “fake polls, no way we can lose unless there is cheating” dance for two weeks at least. Unfortunately I think violence is likely.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Tony G: Well then, in that case…
mayim
@Tony G: I haven’t lived in the Philadelphia area in a decade or so ~ but my mobile area code is still from there. So I’m getting calls from PA politicians [mostly Republicans, although I was registered as a Democrat there] and from those here in Maine [on both my mobile and on the landline that is kept because some parts of this country don’t have reliable signal].
Guessing the PA politicians are just using a list of numbers by area code. Before I stopped answering them, I told several to take me off their lists ~ but I still get calls asking me to vote for Republican candidates. Ugh! I lived on the Philadelphia/Pennsyltucky line and I’m a middle-aged, middle-ish class white woman, and the Republicans need to get votes from women like me to win statewide in PA so I suppose it makes sense they are still calling but…
gene108
Are Republicans flooding the zone with favorable polls, so they cry election fraud if they lose these races?
Don’t know, but it’s a possibility.
eclare
@StringOnAStick: I know, John Oliver had a really good segment on this a few weeks ago. What scares me is that it seems the military is on Brazil TFG’s side.
Layer8Problem
@Princess: Your questions are good. If the Dems were canceling ad buys Erick Erickson wouldn’t be the only place we’d be hearing it. The Times would have some doom-laden headline and Fox would have it bolded and blinking in the chyron as “¡¡¡Breaking News!!!” Maybe that will happen but it hasn’t yet, so all’s we got is Erick and his Magic 8-Ball.
Tony G
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Ha! I hadn’t realized that there’s an actual product called TruCoat, although it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with automobiles. I thought that it was just in “Fargo”. (I wonder whether the product came out before the movie?). So maybe the actual TruCoat is useful, but polling isn’t. https://trucoat.us/
eclare
@Layer8Problem: Good point regarding news coverage. I’ve seen endless stories about what Schumer said on the hot mic. If there were proof D’s were canceling ad sales, the stories would be non-stop.
dww44
@artem1s: Republicans are reliable voters in this almost purple state. And they’ve been early voting in increasing numbers.
Brachiator
@Tony G:
These issues are actually discussed all the time by pollsters. Also, the use of smartphones, area codes which do not match where people actually live, etc.
It’s just that technical issues about how polls are designed and conducted are mainly discussed in journals specifically dedicated to the profession. Mentions in the mainstream media largely go unread or are too surface level to be meaningful.
dww44
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:Alex Wagner is very good.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Just saw a contemptuous Al Jazeera article saying “Lula is no more than a Brazilian Biden” (that is, a weak shitlib not a True Leftist). Whatever.
And that other guy is now lecturing me about how the powers that be have underplayed the effectiveness of mass riots.
Jackie
@Suzanne: That was my thought the moment Bolsonaro was declared the LOSER!
Jackie
@trollhattan: Bonus bonus points if TFG has a meltdown and throws a tantrum.
Cacti
Here’s the problem with the Brazilian military in present day. The last dictatorship only ended in the 1980s. The guys who were the junior officers then are the senior officers now. That said, the military is not universally supportive of Bolsonaro, including senior leaders. But a substantial portion is. And the national police (Policia Militar) are also firmly in his camp.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Facts don’t matter when it’s not news, it’s opinion.
Jackie
@Tony G: Good point! My daughter hasn’t lived in WA State since 2005, except for a brief return in 2012, but she still has her original cell phone number with our area code. She now lives in FL, but she’s carried her phone number to TN, back to WA, IL, and currently FL.
How do polls adjust to that?
Ohio Mom
I don’t know about ad buys, don’t watch TV and rarely listen to commercial radio, but local Dems southwest Ohio are mailing out materials like crazy. Lately we get two or three pieces a day.
Chris T.
I’ve had one actual WA state vote poll on my (non-WA-state area code) cell phone, asking about Rick Larsen mainly. I’ve also had two spam texts promoting Tiffany Smiley (yuck). Already dropped off the by-mail ballot anyway so the texts are irrelevant; the Larsen poll was a few months ago. It was a serious poll, not a push poll, presumably by the campaign to find out what voters’ main issues were.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: no fair! I haven’t gotten Fetterman’s dogs .
munira
@Tony G: I have my phone set up so it doesn’t even ring if the caller isn’t a contact.
Gretchen
@Tony G: my kids are in Florida, Boston and New York but all still have Kansas area codes.
Hitchhiker
In 2020 I was obsessively watching polls about house and senate races, especially Cook Political.
Almost all of them were wrong, in a bad way. I really don’t think it’s worth the trouble of reading any of them at this point. We’ll know when we know.
If it turns out that there are more jibbering, malevolent fools voting out there than normal people, I’m not going to lose my shit over it. We’re up against well-funded, vulgar criminals, and it’s going to take a long time to push them out to the margins where they don’t present as much of a threat.
I still have confidence that in the end, that’s what will happen.
sab
@Ohio Mom: Same here in NE Ohio. Dem ticket flyers every day. Even had our state school board candidate (crucial vote if you care about trans kids or whatever they think CRT means.)
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: I always keep my Hamilton County Democratic Party sample ballot because it includes judges who are endorsed by Dems but not designated D on the ballot
ETA: I voted Saturday.