Lessons Learned - Post 2020 Election Autopsy

[Satchel 6908]

15 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

But, and @bad_teammate said this repeatedly, it wasn't "the left" or a political party who engineered this terms and slogans as part of a campaign or platform. This was an organic, grass-roots, bottoms-up movement in from and in the streets. To have left politicians come in and strong-arm the messaging would have been a bad look. It's a fine needle to thread, which I referenced in my response above, and needed a skillful politician(s) to do it. 

The middle weren't in the streets protesting, at least not for the most of it, and we have to remember that.

Huge church groups participated in BLM protests in cities throughout Texas, including the deadly police massacre in Dallas.

[Goredho 17349]

3 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Interesting.
 

One thing I think this alludes to is that we're all getting pushed to a side and the bell curve of centrists in the middle is getting inverted.  How many times has someone here said, "The GOP is dead to me until it rids itself of Trumpism".  I've said it more than once.  It's not that I'm a huge bleeding liberal.  I voted for Bush I and Bush II once then McCain in 2008.  That's 3 of my 8 presidential votes cast for Republicans.  Yet I can't see myself voting for them ever again until they burn to the ground and reform away from the positions they currently support.

If <------------------------------> this many people used to vote for either party depending on the context of the time, its now <-<- -> this many people.  If you were slightly more conservative or liberal than completely agnostic, you are now a frothing zealot who views politics through an apocalyptic lens.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Goredho

[DonkeyCigars 144]

6 minutes ago, Goredho said:

One thing I think this alludes to is that we're all getting pushed to a side and the bell curve of centrists in the middle is getting inverted.  How many times has someone here said, "The GOP is dead to me until it rids itself of Trumpism".  I've said it more than once.  It's not that I'm a huge bleeding liberal.  I voted for Bush I and Bush II once then McCain in 2008.  That's 3 of my 8 presidential votes cast for Republicans.  Yet I can't see myself voting for them ever again until they burn to the ground and reform away from the positions they currently support.

If <------------------------------> this many people used to vote for either party depending on the context of the time, its now <-<- -> this many people.  If you were slightly more conservative or liberal than completely agnostic, you are now a frothing zealot who views politics through an apocalyptic lens.

I don't see how one can believe as you do (and I generally do, not a criticism to your thinking) and not follow the bread crumbs and keep digging for the root cause. It's very clearly laid at the hands of the internet. The interconnectivity and interoperability, at a lightening speed, to both transmit/share and at the same time wall-off and compartmentalize has destroyed the shared national fabric mesh network of citizenry.

And *claps hand* it *claps hand* will *claps hand* only* claps hand* get *claps hand* worse with 5G.

Not sure what you can do about it either. It's the new normal.

[Goredho 17349]

32 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I don't see how one can believe as you do (and I generally do, not a criticism to your thinking) and not follow the bread crumbs and keep digging for the root cause. It's very clearly laid at the hands of the internet. The interconnectivity and interoperability, at a lightening speed, to both transmit/share and at the same time wall-off and compartmentalize has destroyed the shared national fabric mesh network of citizenry.

And *claps hand* it *claps hand* will *claps hand* only* claps hand* get *claps hand* worse with 5G.

Not sure what you can do about it either. It's the new normal.

The internet is simply an information delivery platform.  It requires information publishers and and an audience of willing consumers to be anything.  Now it is a very efficient and democratic platform -- literally anyone can reach anyone with a message and be largely divorced of the consequences -- but the reality is that the internet is just an amplified projection of what the fuck is in the human head and heart.  And whether or not anyone gives a shit to tune in is also determined by what the fuck is in their head and heart.

So no, you can't do anything about it.  For better or most likely worse, the intardnet is just a massive blob of the human fucking condition.  Even the cat memes.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Goredho

[Captainant 27467]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I'm afraid the rioting and destruction associated with BLM, even if unfairly, put off a lot of people, along with the companion messaging disaster of "defund the police."

either that or: those people never would have sided with BLM or changed their stance from "I BACK DUH BLUE!!", and this was what they needed to discredit it out of hand within their echo chambers

[BradInATX 9208]

Wonderful that the takeaway is not to use with anti-police rhetoric lest you lose a big voting bloc.

A nation held hostage by a government sponsored criminal enterprise. Yay.

Boomers can't get out of the way fast enough.

[Mdhorn 5911]

On 11/5/2020 at 8:43 AM, Wulaw Horn said:

Yep. I don’t know if it’s people liking the status quo more or people being afraid of change. I hate change. Loathe it. Stayed in a bad relationship before longer than I should because of my hatred for change. Inertia is a real bitch to overcome sometimes. 

But why would you want everybody else to stay in your bad relationship along with you?  I'd wish for better for others, especially for their kids.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Mdhorn

[Mdhorn 5911]

On 11/5/2020 at 10:46 AM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Your media thoughts are interesting. I sort of disagree and yet I don't. (sorry, it's confusing to me, too) I don't have accounts on social, but I do check around frequently. This fellow below I've been reading a lot more lately simply because in the last days before the election, the information was coming at a very high rate and it's something *one needs to monitor. The groundwork in Washington had already been laid four plus years ago and I wanted to watch how well the last minute drops, (laptops, hookers, emails, etc on one end and tax fraud, money laundering, etc on the other) resonated. Hard to say how much either succeeded, we have, or had, already ensconced ourselves in our comfortable bubbles.

But to point: This below. Ignore the Russia Russia mention. It is irrelevant to his argument in the sense that it is simply the origin for a type of communication. The later point in his second tweet about the "low trust environment and lowers it further," -----who do we know that does that on a regular basis, and pushes listeners/readers to "trusted sources" that repeat misinformation and lies? How are investigative journalists going to combat that without appearing as if they are constantly attacking the President? It is a consistent reinforced mantra that has collectively sunk into citizen's brains. How many people do you know that now qualify almost every statement in a conversation about politics with something either about the "fake news" or the "obvious media bias," or "censorship" or any of several buzzwords? It is a ton. I think we (and I'm including myself here) Dunning-Kruger ourselves into believing we can outwit and outsmart the propagandists and their methods, motives, and merchandising but we miss A LOT of what is right in front of us.

Aside from that, though, corporate journalism does need a reckoning of sorts. However, this is a super dicey situation, IMO. That WaPo tag: Democracy dies in darkness is not wrong. Transparency is important. But look at what sort of odd arrangement has developed:

The 'crimes' or 'bad' (depending upon your POV) actors have been completely out in the open, unapologetic for their behavior and choices.

The media landscape has rapidly evolved from print to world-wide instant information and the financial repercussions of that are still being handled. Paywalls are unpopular, advertising is unpopular, and people are flocking to the "free" information that dresses itself up as 'trusted' but doesn't follow sound journalistic practices. These practices get ridiculed these days, but if you have cancer, do you rely on and pay for the medical doctor who has the training and experience to treat your disease or do you go to your neighbor that gives you a copper wristband and tells you what you want to hear? Media has bias, certainly, and lately have been and continue to be raked over the coals for editorial decisions. But it seems to me that is a completely separate discussion, but the exposure to free sources of info that most do not fact check before spreading (FW:FW:FW) is highly problematic with a greater reach than ever before.

Your second point I'd like to discuss further, but I need to take time to actually work so I hope to discuss it later. It's an interesting topic and I enjoy reading your takes.

Real question that I'm curious about--in a world where I have a weather app, food app, map app, news app, do people still watch the news?  My guess is no.  The same way younger people don't read the newspaper.  But I could be totally wrong--I just haven't seen a newspaper brought to class that I can recall in over 15 years but it may be longer. Where do most get their news?    

[Wulaw Horn 18981]

51 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Real question that I'm curious about--in a world where I have a weather app, food app, map app, news app, do people still watch the news?  My guess is no.  The same way younger people don't read the newspaper.  But I could be totally wrong--I just haven't seen a newspaper brought to class that I can recall in over 15 years but it may be longer. Where do most get their news?    

Funny story- I had to take pictures the other day with a date stamp. I couldn’t figure that out bc I’m a dumbass. So I bought a DMN to use like a proof of life video to prove the date. It was $2.99!  What the fuck man. If I was inclined to buy the newspaper no way at that price point. 

[Wulaw Horn 18981]

1 hour ago, Mdhorn said:

But why would you want everybody else to stay in your bad relationship along with you?  I'd wish for better for others, especially for their kids.

I wasn’t saying that as the best idea, was just trying to come up with reasons for it playing out the way it did. Just a half ass working theory. 

[Mdhorn 5911]

13 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I wasn’t saying that as the best idea, was just trying to come up with reasons for it playing out the way it did. Just a half ass working theory. 

I've been in bad relationships and jobs and did the same from convenience.  Trump actually had me worried that the world could come to a fiery end.  I've never been in that kind of relationship.    

Edited March 4, 2021 by Mdhorn

[DonkeyCigars 144]

8 hours ago, Goredho said:

The internet is simply an information delivery platform.  It requires information publishers and and an audience of willing consumers to be anything.  Now it is a very efficient and democratic platform -- literally anyone can reach anyone with a message and be largely divorced of the consequences -- but the reality is that the internet is just an amplified projection of what the fuck is in the human head and heart.  And whether or not anyone gives a shit to tune in is also determined by what the fuck is in their head and heart.

So no, you can't do anything about it.  For better or most likely worse, the intardnet is just a massive blob of the human fucking condition.  Even the cat memes.

In both subtle and explicit ways, technology is also changing what it means to be human.

 

[UTDD 362]

13 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I'm afraid the rioting and destruction associated with BLM, even if unfairly, put off a lot of people, along with the companion messaging disaster of "defund the police."

For the latter part of this specific statement, I absolutely encountered people I know well that were very interested in the topic of police reform, but then were completely turned off by the word defund.  (which they interpreted most often as getting rid of police entirely)  I don't know if that impacted their voting at all, but I do think it influenced how they framed the overall issue of police reform.  (better to have police than not at all)  And yes, obviously this is not the core truth of this issue at all, but people can wander off to their own interpretations - or be open to outside influences misbranding issues - in how they think if issues are not owned/framed well.

I think for the election, I expected a little stronger repudiation of Trumpism that did not happen, and actually fear that the election might very well have gone differently if COVID did not happen and the economy was humming along just fine.  I am very worried that someday a Trump like candidate will arise that espouses some of the same nasty ideas/rhetoric I don't like, but instead of being bombastic and foolish...is instead very calculating, intelligent, and strategic while still outwardly showing similar traits as Trump.

[washparkhorn 9935]

Repeated lesson: Regardless of how center-right the candidate, Republicans will always call the Democratic candidate a socialist. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

On 3/3/2021 at 7:57 PM, Mdhorn said:

Real question that I'm curious about--in a world where I have a weather app, food app, map app, news app, do people still watch the news?  My guess is no.  The same way younger people don't read the newspaper.  But I could be totally wrong--I just haven't seen a newspaper brought to class that I can recall in over 15 years but it may be longer. Where do most get their news?    

We still receive the local newspaper. It's getting pricey and isn't locally owned anymore but it enabled us to provide an entry and an example to instructing our children in how to consume information. Plus comics, although that has declined too.

We've never been regular television news watchers, however. CNN, MSNBC, Fox are not our thing. We do watch 60 minutes sometimes and I will watch CSPAN for specific events. Our children, like us, tend to read info online from a variety of sources--Reuters, WaPo, etc. Lot of Gen Z seem to use Reddit. My youngest will see something on Reddit and then verify. Don't know what will happen if trusted sources become scarce because at this point verify is becoming more problematic. No one in our family regularly uses social media other than viewing public accounts.

I can only think of one or two friends in my age group that regularly watch television news. They are also heavy Facebook users. And NextDoor. Not my thing.

 

[Snake Diggity 4614]

I used to think it was rich vs poor.  Then I thought it was a white vs dark.  Then I thought it was educated vs uneducated.  But now I think it's just rural vs urban. 

 

Rural people have different priorities than urban people.  It is much easier for them to ignore the kinds of problems progressives are passionate about fixing.  They are also more susceptible to lies, although I'm not entirely sure why.  We have to find a way to bring rural people into the fold of modern society, or else.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

9 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I used to think it was rich vs poor.  Then I thought it was a white vs dark.  Then I thought it was educated vs uneducated.  But now I think it's just rural vs urban. 

It’s money vs people.  Has been since the beginning. 

[SydneyCarton 47884]

11 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I used to think it was rich vs poor.  Then I thought it was a white vs dark.  Then I thought it was educated vs uneducated.  But now I think it's just rural vs urban. 

 

Rural people have different priorities than urban people.  It is much easier for them to ignore the kinds of problems progressives are passionate about fixing.  They are also more susceptible to lies, although I'm not entirely sure why.  We have to find a way to bring rural people into the fold of modern society, or else.

This is partially a joke, but I mean...Rich vs. Poor, White vs. Dark, Educated vs. Uneducated is basically the same thing as rural vs. urban. 

Im kidding. Mostly. 

[YChang 3431]

23 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I used to think it was rich vs poor.  Then I thought it was a white vs dark.  Then I thought it was educated vs uneducated.  But now I think it's just rural vs urban. 

 

Rural people have different priorities than urban people.  It is much easier for them to ignore the kinds of problems progressives are passionate about fixing.  They are also more susceptible to lies, although I'm not entirely sure why.  We have to find a way to bring rural people into the fold of modern society, or else.

I think having category A v category  B is what gets us into trouble. It’s all of what you said and what’s maddening is depending on the topic there are various spectrums of all those in play and to consider.

[Snake Diggity 4614]

1 hour ago, YChang said:

I think having category A v category  B is what gets us into trouble. It’s all of what you said and what’s maddening is depending on the topic there are various spectrums of all those in play and to consider.

Sure, people are complex, so generalizing has big risks.  But being able to categorize the meaningful differences between people is an important step in understanding those differences and figuring out how to bridge them and solve the problems they create.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

 

Average error 6.3 points. V v useful in a world where everything is decided by 3 points.  Basically not able to fix anything that went wrong in 2016 (we uh didn’t weight for education last time! We’re on it now!) despite having the experience of 2016 to adjust from. 

[High Plains Drifter 10978]

 

We are in the middle of a switch in the base of the two parties. The Jeff Bezos's are Democrats, because they are willing to risk (slightly) higher taxes to keep it from all being burnt down. Joe Six Pack is a Trumpist, because Joe thinks Trump will burn it all down. Used to be the other way around.  Hillary wasn't going to burn it all down, Joe Six Pack knew that, we all knew that. At least some, enough, Joe Six Packs thought maybe Obama would, but nope.

 

The demographic shifts that would seem to favor democrats won't matter if the above switch keeps happening. Trump's share of young black males, and hispanic males, was higher in 2020 than in 2016, for fuck sake.

 

Democrats need to bring back the Joe Six Packs, the union guys, and hold on tight to the African Americans and the Hispanics, or Trumpism will win again.

 

 

 

[956 Worldwide 34444]

Problem for the Democrats, there is no such thing as a “Hispanic” community or shared experience.  That’s just a box on surveys and census forms.  In Texas, at least, it’s only Republicans stepping on their own racist dicks that have prevented an actual red wave among Mexican-Americans. The Dems have to make an effort to retain some semblance of being a big tent party, or else just hope that Republicans don’t learn that literally all they need to do is not say racist shit all the time and they’ll pick up several percentage points among 3rd generation and beyond Mexican-Americans. 

[TwiceHorn 31283]

The other thing, this is the first time in my life that police misconduct has risen to a level that attracts mainstream voter attention.

But, there are a lot of people that "aren't paying attention" to that for various reasons, including racism.

And without that acknowledgement that police are a real problem, along with some other realities like the war on drugs is a costly failure and fundamental policy mistake, "tough on crime" remains a big winner at the ballot box.  People are irrationally frightened of crime and criminals, and of drugs for that matter.  And there are some minorities and economically disadvantaged that may have a rational fear of crime (recall the portions of the black community stridently in favor of the 1996 crime bill).

So, "liberals" or even open-minded conservatives like me, are going to have to be careful with the "tough on crime" message and counters to it, because it's a very effective issue.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

On 3/26/2021 at 3:11 PM, High Plains Drifter said:

 

We are in the middle of a switch in the base of the two parties. The Jeff Bezos's are Democrats, because they are willing to risk (slightly) higher taxes to keep it from all being burnt down. Joe Six Pack is a Trumpist, because Joe thinks Trump will burn it all down. Used to be the other way around.  Hillary wasn't going to burn it all down, Joe Six Pack knew that, we all knew that. At least some, enough, Joe Six Packs thought maybe Obama would, but nope.

 

The demographic shifts that would seem to favor democrats won't matter if the above switch keeps happening. Trump's share of young black males, and hispanic males, was higher in 2020 than in 2016, for fuck sake.

 

Democrats need to bring back the Joe Six Packs, the union guys, and hold on tight to the African Americans and the Hispanics, or Trumpism will win again.

 

 

 

Dems losing Joe Six Packs is part of their most cunning plan -- “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia...", Chuck Schumer, 2017. They want to be the party of the suburbs and the woke and they believe they can take the Black and Brown votes for granted: "Where else are you going to go?" DLC types have been saying for years now. 

Trouble is, they can't take minority voters for granted anymore, and the suburban middle class is shrinking, thanks in large part to the Dems not doing enough to protect it for the last 40 years. And they connived enough with the GOP in destroying Big Labor to where they came to believe they were now no longer worth fighting for a long time ago. 

Basically we have one racist party dominated by one set of billionaires and an anti-racist party dominated by a different set of billionaires, neither of which wants to make any structural change to a nation sliding toward a haves and have-nots economy on the order of Mexico or Brazil. We've allowed race to totally subsume class because acting like we are "doing something" about racism is a hell of a lot easier than bringing disparity of income under control. 

 

[SaucyJack 3487]

On 3/26/2021 at 3:11 PM, High Plains Drifter said:

 

We are in the middle of a switch in the base of the two parties. The Jeff Bezos's are Democrats, because they are willing to risk (slightly) higher taxes to keep it from all being burnt down. Joe Six Pack is a Trumpist, because Joe thinks Trump will burn it all down. Used to be the other way around.  Hillary wasn't going to burn it all down, Joe Six Pack knew that, we all knew that. At least some, enough, Joe Six Packs thought maybe Obama would, but nope.

The demographic shifts that would seem to favor democrats won't matter if the above switch keeps happening. Trump's share of young black males, and hispanic males, was higher in 2020 than in 2016, for fuck sake.

Democrats need to bring back the Joe Six Packs, the union guys, and hold on tight to the African Americans and the Hispanics, or Trumpism will win again.

 

 

 

A percentage increase does not necessarily mean that the Dem margin of victory was lower in 2020 v 2016 (and that's all that really matters).

Estimates of Latino total turnout are 16.6 Million v 12.8 Million.  

Therefore, a percentage increase from say 25% to 32% (to the R)  would still result in net increase to the D total vote margin of victory by approx. 1.4 Million.

 

https://latino.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Election-2020-Report-1.19.pdf

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Interesting WaPo article this morning on polls being worse than ever, even with having 2016 to learn from (“we didn’t correct for education!”) 

This stuff is interesting to me that data scientists can’t seem to figure it out.  Everything we do today is governed by big data.  Yet this area with intense interest and infinite funding can’t see through the haze.  Or possibly, a bunch of uneducated rural folks are smarter than pollsters.  It’s wild. Maybe we go back to normal as soon as Trump is off the ballot, because the error may be totally attributable to his ‘don’t trust the media’ theme.   But I doubt it.  The fact that nothing was learned from 2016 to 2020 (actually appeared to get worse) is baffling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020-poll-errors/2021/07/18/8d6a9838-e7df-11eb-ba5d-55d3b5ffcaf1_story.html
 

Quote

Public opinion polls in the 2020 presidential election suffered from errors of “unusual magnitude,” the highest in 40 years for surveys estimating the national popular vote and in at least 20 years for state-level polls, according to a study conducted by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

The AAPOR task force examined 2,858 polls, including 529 national presidential race polls and 1,572 state-level presidential polls. They found that the surveys overstated the margin between President Biden and former president Donald Trump by 3.9 points in the national popular vote and 4.3 percentage points in state polls.

Polls understated the support for Trumpin nearly every state and by an average of 3.3 percentage points overall. Polls in Senate and gubernatorial races suffered from the same problem.

Story continues below advertisement

 

“There was a systematic error that was found in terms of the overstatement for Democratic support across the board,” said Josh Clinton, a Vanderbilt University political science professor who chaired the 19-member task force. “It didn’t matter what type of poll you were doing, whether you’re interviewing by phone or Internet or whatever. And it didn’t matter what type of race, whether President Trump was on the ballot or was not on the ballot.”

The polls did a better job of estimating the average support for Biden, with a few exceptions. In general, support for Biden in the polls was 1 percentage point higher than his actual vote.

An AAPOR task force conducted a similar examination after the 2016 election. Then, national polls generally accurately predicted the size of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory over Trump, but state polls proved more problematic, causing many analysts at the time to predict wrongly that Clinton also would win an electoral college majority.

Story continues below advertisement

 

In the new study, task force members were able to rule out a series of reasons that might have caused the 2020 polls to show a bigger margin for Biden over Trump than the actual results. That included some of the problems that affected polling in 2016, such as the failure in that year to account for levels of education in the samples of voters.

But the task force members were not able to reach definitive conclusions on exactly what caused the problems in the most recent election polls and therefore how to correct their methodology ahead of the next elections. “Identifying conclusively why polls overstated the Democratic-Republican margin relative to the certified vote appears to be impossible with the available data,” the report states.

Polling in senatorial and gubernatorial races showed a similar pattern, overstating the margin for Democratic candidates versus their Republican opponents. When state-level presidential polls were removed from the sample, the error level was even higher. For example, polling pointed to possible Democratic gains in House races. Instead, Republicans gained seats.

National presidential polls were accurate in one respect, which was in pointing to the popular vote winner. Of 66 such polls taken in the last two weeks of the campaign, all showed Biden ahead of Trump. “The performance of senatorial polls was notably worse,” the report notes, with just 66 percent correctly identifying the winning candidate.

Story continues below advertisement

 

Josh Clinton, the task force chairman, said the group ruled out some possible reasons the polls were not as accurate as hoped. For example, the proposition that some Trump voters lied to pollsters about how they would vote doesn’t hold up because the error margin was larger for Republicans in Senate and gubernatorial races.

The task force examined and ruled out sources of error in 2016 polls as the cause of problems in 2020. In 2016, late-deciding voters broke heavily for Trump. In 2020, there were far fewer such voters, with most voters generally locked in on their choice well before Election Day and with many casting ballots in advance, either by mail or in person.

Another factor that contributed to problems in 2016 was that many polls did not weight their samples based on education levels, a relatively new fault line in voting behavior. The 2016 election saw clear differences in vote preferences among White voters with college degrees, who generally favored Clinton, versus those without, who generally favored Trump. By 2020, most polls did weight their samples by levels of education.

Story continues below advertisement

 

Nor was there evidence that the polls were mistaken in their assumption of the composition of the electorate. No group or groups were systematically underrepresented or overrepresented in the pre-election polls, the report said.

The task force examined other possible causes for error, such as whether supporters of Trump and Biden told pollsters how they would vote but ultimately did not vote or whether polls included too many people who voted early (a group that favored Biden) and too few who voted on Election Day (a group that favored Trump). In neither case was that shown to be a problem.

One possible explanation is that Republicans who responded to surveys voted differently than Republicans who choose not to respond to pollsters. The task force said this was a reasonable assumption, given declining trust in institutions generally and Trump’s repeated characterizations of most polls by mainstream news organizations as fake or faulty.

Story continues below advertisement

 

“That the polls overstated Biden’s support more in Whiter, more rural, and less densely populated states is suggestive (but not conclusive) that the polling error resulted from too few Trump supporters responding to polls,” the report states. “A larger polling error was found in states with more Trump supporters.”

The report points to the role of new voters in 2020 as one possible cause of the errors. There were 22 million more votes certified in 2020 than in 2016, enough in some states to account for the error rate in the polls. But the report said that the available data is not sufficient to draw conclusions about whether these new voters were the main source of polling errors.

The report emphasizes that though often quite accurate, polls are not as precise as sometimes assumed and therefore given to misinterpretation, especially in the most competitive races. “Most pre-election polls lack the precision necessary to predict the outcome of semi-close contests,” the report states. “Despite the desire to use polls to determine results in a close race, the precision of polls is often far less than the precision that is assumed by poll consumers.”

Story continues below advertisement

 

The report offers a cautionary note about the reliability of pre-election polls in the upcoming elections, stating, “It is unclear whether the problems polls faced in 2020 will persist in 2022 or 2024, and what happens in 2022 may be uninformative for knowing if there are longer-term issues.”

Clinton pointed to the Trump factor in the context of future elections and polls. “It’s possible that if President Trump is no longer on the ticket or if it’s a midterm election where we know that the electorate differs in the presidential election, that the issue will kind of self-resolve itself,” he said.

He said that polling in 2018 was generally better than in 2016, which led some pollsters to believe the problems had been resolved. Then came 2020, and the problems reemerged. That has left a high degree of uncertainty as to whether the problem is mostly related to whether Trump is on the ballot or whether there are deeper problems affecting polls.

Story continues below advertisement

 

Clinton said that, if polls in 2022 are not particularly accurate, that would be a sign of a persistent shift in pollsters’ ability to reach particular groups of voters. “But if the polls do well in 2022, then we don’t know if the issue is solved,” he added. “Or whether it’s just a phenomenon that’s unique to presidential elections with particular candidates who are making appeals about ‘Don’t trust the news, don’t trust the polls’ that kind of results in taking polls becoming a political act.”

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11810]

I think it's really pretty simple.  A lot of people lie, particularly deplorables who support immoral and criminal behavior.

[Js1 85112]

7 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

I think it's really pretty simple.  A lot of people lie, particularly deplorables who support immoral and criminal behavior.

A lot of liars

A lot of non-response - they don't trust polls, so they don't respond

A lot of people who maybe didn't get through likely voter screens because Trump brings out people who only vote for him and no one else 

[Nivek 16861]

Maybe the polling sampling is not matching the pop distribution.

[Nivek 16861]

Maybe the polling sampling is not matching the pop distribution.

[Fudge Nuggets 19151]

Or maybe the GQP cheated their asses off both elections.

Slocum’s razor and what not. 

[bluto 4894]

This was one of my favorite aspects of the election

“Libtard pollsters try to get me to tell them how I’m voting! F them, I just lie and say Biden”
…POLLS SHOW BIDEN UP 8 PTS….
“Those polls are skewed in favor of Biden bc they’re conducted by liberals! They’re running Suppression polls!”