Are polls purposely skewed or not?
Yesterday we had a discussion on this thread about whether polls are gamed in order to help a certain candidate or party. It’s a question that’s interesting enough to devote a whole other post to it.
Then answer is: it depends on the poll and the circumstances, but for the most part, most mainstream, recognized pollsters have an investment in getting things right. If a pollster fails to predict an election, and is off (or way off) too often, that pollster’s reputation suffers. Reputation for accuracy is important to a pollster, and argues for trying to be as correct as possible in predicting outcomes.
However, some pollsters are known to be more propaganda-driven than others. That is based on their track records, and who hires them and for what. But a great many of the more well-known pollsters’ fame and reputation rests on their predictive ability, and to be accurate you cannot also be repeatedly and consistently skewing the data.
Poll companies are money-making entities, for the most part. It costs money to run polls, and the more respondents included on a poll, the more expensive the poll is. Therefore, although sampling techniques are very important and can make up for other deficiencies, in general the higher the “n” the smaller the margin of error. These days, the response rate is so low (which is a built-in problem in many respects) that for every respondent a poll reaches, the pollster has to have contacted nine more. This takes time, and time is money. In New York state (the subject of yesterday’s post), delegate are determined on a district-by-district basis, and to do an accurate poll would require matching the number of respondents to the GOP registration for each district. Getting it right—and getting enough GOP subjects to be accurate in each district in a state where GOP membership is very spotty—would probably cost a lot more than pollsters are willing to spend for a state poll in a primary.
And, the pollsters have to rely on the respondents to be honest.
I usually refuse, but when I do answer, I might just give them wrong answers or actually challenge them on the questions, especially the variations to check your opinion. And unless there is a double check by the pollsters, who knows if the pollster checks the right box.
So, I don’t trust polls.
On another topic, I’m listening to Hannity and he’s complaining about the CO caucus results as being not representative. But, to me, any state that has an open primary is also not representative.
At least, make someone declare themselves to be a R or a D some period of time before the primary. I think it is funny that CO (and OK) only required a declaration 30 days before. It seems that OK is “more liberal” than NY which requires a change a much longer time (was it 6 months?). Who woulda thunk that?
I assume NY has such a long wait period because of their extensive experience with voter fraud.
On the subject of polling, a few new Northeastern polls came out today that change the predictions on Nate Silver’s site fivethirtyeight.com. The polls are headed in the wrong direction for Cruz, so Trump may win a huge majority of the delegates in the Northeast.
The polling may be wrong (though I doubt it: too many different companies), but it doesn’t do any good to dwell on it. It turns out as it turns out.
neoneocon: it depends on the poll and the circumstances, but for the most part, most mainstream, recognized pollsters have an investment in getting things right. If a pollster fails to predict an election, and is off (or way off) too often, that pollster’s reputation suffers.
Bull puckies… Gallup is the polling organization with the worst record, yet is the one people trust the most… funny. eh? they earn money not by being right, but by being liked and their influence.
[lets see if i can show you history you can look up and dont know about – again]
of course they are for gaming as they are a trusted thing, and anything that is trusted that people listen to will be co-opted or used to move people, nuge people, etc. [what do you think the wolf in sheeps clothing symbology is for. the sheep is trusted, gutted removed and a wolf hides and does what wolves do under the false blanket of being one of the sheeple. duh]
why do you think the left and feminists create endless surveys without ever giving you the numbers, the questions, and more? like how they selected people, the list of people to confirm what they chose is what they chose, etc.
you want to know who started this survey thing?
the idea of the modern survey that your talking about is NOT from academia, its from madison avenue…
why would madison avenue, the business of shaping how you think, use surveys to do that if the survey was for letting us know what you think?
i even got to meet the man who did this
David Ogilvy
an advertising executive who was widely hailed as “The Father of Advertising”. In 1962, Time called him “the most sought-after wizard in today’s advertising industry”
[edited for length by n-n]
Art, what you wrote has nothing to do with the topic. It’s funny that you closed it with “everything is connected”.
[i have taken lots of courses in polisci]
Chapter 5
Public Opinion
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/polisci/american-politics-today2/full/ch/05/outline.aspx
Early studies of public opinion during the 1950s found little evidence that public opinion existed. The surveys revealed high levels of inconsistency, including conflicts in a single respondent’s political ideology both within a single setting and over time and the inability to defend opinions. Only a small fraction of the electorate, 5 percent, was classified as having the highest level of conceptualization, which refers to the amount of complexity in an individual’s beliefs about government and policy and the extent to which those beliefs are consistent with each other and remain consistent over time.
The New Theory of Public Opinion
In order to accurately capture public opinion, scholars need to expand their picture of what it might look like. While early surveys looked for evidence that opinions were internally consistent, stable, and based on a rationale that allowed them to be explained, modern scholars suggest that none of these conditions are necessary.
why?
A latent opinion is formed on the spot, only when needed (as distinct from a deeply held opinion, which is stable over time). For most Americans, all opinions are latent.
When opinions are formed on the spot, they are based on considerations, the pieces of relevant information–such as ideology, party identification, religious beliefs, personal circumstances, and so on–that come to mind when the opinion is requested.
Where Do Opinions Come From?
Socialization: Families and Communities [so the left controlling families and so on is about molding opinions, and shaping thoughts, NOT about liberating women – which is why women are worse off, births are below replacement, more children are in poverty ever before, and they side with the burkha and such as that is the politics they want, not what the people they control want] Theories of political socialization show that many people’s political opinions start with what they learned from their parents and surrounding culture
Events
People can revise their opinions in response to what happens to them and in the world around them. Political realignments are a good example. A realignment is a nationwide shift in which large numbers of people move from identifying with one political party to identifying with another.
[edited for length by n-n]
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Public Opinion Polls
Russell D. Renka
Professor of Political Science
Southeast Missouri State University
http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/rdrenka/Renka_papers/polls.htm
in this thread:
http://neoneocon.com/2016/04/07/america-united/
Neo covered this from TIME (and i brought up the invalidity of polls before the person she refers to in the post for this thread)
7 in 10 Americans Have an Unfavorable View of Donald Trump, Poll Finds
not one place could i find the poll questions, the people asked, or any valid information as to the actual poll. just results, cherry picked from more than one poll, the use of the name gallup to add veracity, and so on.
but NONE of the things the poli sci professor claims are part of VALID polls and not polls designed to change minds.
so neo was keen on putting that up because why?
well Renka explains that as well in the next paragraph
[edited for length by n-n]
@not so Artful Dodger – Some friendly advice…
When the sum total of words you are using in the comments section is regularly well beyond the article’s author’s, then you aren’t doing it right.
It is one thing to have a well organized, but long response. However, to have several of the TL;DR variety, especially if they might be on some tangent, is just comment pollution, sorry to say.
Brevity is your friend.
Alternatively, consider starting your own blog, if you need that much space.
Please take this as an honest critique to helping you get “heard”.
Artfldgr:
There is no question that polls are used by various media people, pundits, candidates, bloggers, etc. as propaganda. They are cited without explaining the flaws, they are distorted, they are mis-described, etc.. That’s a separate issue, however, from the one described in this post.