• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Polls always matter, you just have to understand polls.

    This is with third party options and show Biden up 2% which is probably close to margin of error.

    It doesn’t mean Biden has it in the bag, but it means his chances are improved.

    But Biden risks the same dangers Hillary did in 2016.

    People don’t really want to vote for them, they just don’t want trump. So there’s a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don’t think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don’t need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.

    It’s a dangerous game, and we wouldn’t have to play it if we ran a candidate popular with Dem voters.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Nor are they even remotely reliable to gauge things in the short term.

        The methodology of collecting this data can be so heavily bias that the pollers can get whatever result they’re looking for, if they’re pursuing a narrative. I could write a poll that leads the poll takers to just about any desired conclusion by choosing very targeted questions with bad faith multiple choice options, and by conducting the polls targeting specific demographics. It’s a trivial thing to do.

        Instead, you have to deep dive into the polling methodology, have a deep understanding of the quality of the poll operators, etc, to have any idea of if the poll was even trustworthy.

        I, for one, dismiss polls entirely. There is too much disinformation, too many bad actors, whose entire goal is to “prove” their own biases in favor of their narrative, that the amount of shit buries the truth. So it seems a pointless exercise to sift through the shit to find the nuggets of truth, particularly when good faith polling isn’t at all reliable in the first place.

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Exactly, also the expert in the article says basically the same thing in more diplomatic language:

          However, speaking to Newsweek Todd Landman, a professor of political science at Nottingham University in the U.K., said it was “still too far out from the election” to read much into swing state polls.

          He said: “The race remains highly volatile, and it is still too far out from the election to make any firm conclusion from changing polls across these swing states.”

      • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        What horseshit… you need to know the number of people polled in order to know the margin of error.

        • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          “Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love” old people (Republicans) vote, always, because they are retired. Democrats work and need to go out of their way to vote, so you have to convince them.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      So there’s a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don’t think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don’t need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.

      That’s largely how Romney lost to Obama in 2012. Republican turnout sagged in a year when both candidates’ approval ratings were underwater. Mitt lost a bunch of midwestern states that a candidate like Bush or Trump could have won, thanks to his vulture capitalist career alienating blue-collar conservatives and his weird knock-off religion alienating evangelicals.

    • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Whoever on your account team wrote this one is funny. They’re right. But I love how they wrote that Biden will poll well, when the other guy has been spending weeks saying how bad he’s doing.

      Consistency my guys. Get your stories straight. Especially if you’re going to comment walls of text multiple times every hour every day. Don’t make it so obvious.