DAMN!...I had never considered that. I was definitely in camp "polls are worse than useless, they're undemocratic", but I like your take...Confusing polls are as close as you can get to 'no polls at all'..If you can't DEPEND on them, then its roughly equivalent not having them in the first place, EXCEPT that it creates space for conversation...And like you imply, provides 'data-points'
The problem with polls, even the ones done in good faith and with good methodology is that they provide simple answers by asking simple questions about complex situations...
I've had two opportunities to participate in this type of poll... I opted out of one of them about halfway through, and the other I didn't feel good about...With EVERY question they asked I felt the need to clarify the question or to include caveats, etc...I was pretty well politically literate at that time (During Obama admin) so it dawned on me that there is a Dunning Kruger thingamabob going on with polls...The MORE informed you are about what's going on, the HARDER it is to answer poll questions in a way that feel ACCURATE to what you INTEND because you understand how your answer will be INTERPRETED.. so in that way, polls favor less informed people overall...And then you have the personality problem..Authoritarian types will often see polls as a fealty test, where they will give 'their guy' highest points possible and the 'opposition's guy' lowest points possible. Non authoritarian types being more likely to give an honest assessment of their own candidates (My answers on the one Obama term poll I took implied that I had NO INTENTION of voting for him in 2012...nothing could have been further from the truth)
You really can't equate dissatisfaction with voting habits
but yeah, thanks for this post! It helped clarify my thinking on polls (i think of them ALOT and probably too much!)
The thing I don't like about "horse-race" polls is that they come out of the blue and are basically saying "what are your current gripes telling you." There are no real consequences for the polled person to unload on Biden because the price of their favorite goodie has gone up and they don't stop to think that their wages have too, and that they may be able to buy more of said goodie now than when their income and prices were both lower.
The voting both has consequences. Except for the really ill informed or the fanatics, at least SOME thinking goes on before they mark the ballot.
It's seems pretty obvious to me. Voters don't blame their local candidates for foreign policy, immigration or the national economy, they blame the President. Those seem to be the 3 things dragging Biden's approval down, not to mention the age thing. But they will vote for Dems in special elections, and especially if there's a referendum related to abortion.
Boy, I have to agree wholeheartedly with the idea that journalists are misusing polls! Especially when there are glaring inconsistencies in the crosstabs (I’m lookin’ at *you*, NYT/Siena!)
weird crosstabs don’t necessarily mean the topline is wrong. for example, pollsters often have trouble getting enough GOP and enough Black ppl in samples. when they try to correct they may overrepresent Black Republicans—but the samples of Ds and Rs are still basically accurate so the topline numbers can be right even if the race crosstabs are wonky.
But *there’s* the fundamental problem, Noah: not enough participants from given groups, so they rely more and more on their algorithms to make up for it. To me, that’s why it’s hard to rely on just the topline, as their algorithms can be skewed, which ends with results like a “red wave” that *never* materialized.
but the 2022 polls were very accurate! the problem that year wasn’t that polls said there’d be a red wave; it’s that polls said there would be no red wave, but pundits didn’t believe the polls!
Sorry! You’re right, ie other than Simon Rosenberg, most of the media was playing into the “red wave” narrative and not the polls. It was 2020 that the polling was off significantly and hence why many were skeptical of the 2022 polling and spun their own story instead…
"Polls also are helpful when they are confusing"
DAMN!...I had never considered that. I was definitely in camp "polls are worse than useless, they're undemocratic", but I like your take...Confusing polls are as close as you can get to 'no polls at all'..If you can't DEPEND on them, then its roughly equivalent not having them in the first place, EXCEPT that it creates space for conversation...And like you imply, provides 'data-points'
The problem with polls, even the ones done in good faith and with good methodology is that they provide simple answers by asking simple questions about complex situations...
I've had two opportunities to participate in this type of poll... I opted out of one of them about halfway through, and the other I didn't feel good about...With EVERY question they asked I felt the need to clarify the question or to include caveats, etc...I was pretty well politically literate at that time (During Obama admin) so it dawned on me that there is a Dunning Kruger thingamabob going on with polls...The MORE informed you are about what's going on, the HARDER it is to answer poll questions in a way that feel ACCURATE to what you INTEND because you understand how your answer will be INTERPRETED.. so in that way, polls favor less informed people overall...And then you have the personality problem..Authoritarian types will often see polls as a fealty test, where they will give 'their guy' highest points possible and the 'opposition's guy' lowest points possible. Non authoritarian types being more likely to give an honest assessment of their own candidates (My answers on the one Obama term poll I took implied that I had NO INTENTION of voting for him in 2012...nothing could have been further from the truth)
You really can't equate dissatisfaction with voting habits
but yeah, thanks for this post! It helped clarify my thinking on polls (i think of them ALOT and probably too much!)
The thing I don't like about "horse-race" polls is that they come out of the blue and are basically saying "what are your current gripes telling you." There are no real consequences for the polled person to unload on Biden because the price of their favorite goodie has gone up and they don't stop to think that their wages have too, and that they may be able to buy more of said goodie now than when their income and prices were both lower.
The voting both has consequences. Except for the really ill informed or the fanatics, at least SOME thinking goes on before they mark the ballot.
It's seems pretty obvious to me. Voters don't blame their local candidates for foreign policy, immigration or the national economy, they blame the President. Those seem to be the 3 things dragging Biden's approval down, not to mention the age thing. But they will vote for Dems in special elections, and especially if there's a referendum related to abortion.
The thing is this just has not been true at all historically. Low presidential approval has a strong effect on local races.
to some degree. journalists also don't always do a great job of explaining how polls work, or of using them responsibly.
Boy, I have to agree wholeheartedly with the idea that journalists are misusing polls! Especially when there are glaring inconsistencies in the crosstabs (I’m lookin’ at *you*, NYT/Siena!)
weird crosstabs don’t necessarily mean the topline is wrong. for example, pollsters often have trouble getting enough GOP and enough Black ppl in samples. when they try to correct they may overrepresent Black Republicans—but the samples of Ds and Rs are still basically accurate so the topline numbers can be right even if the race crosstabs are wonky.
But *there’s* the fundamental problem, Noah: not enough participants from given groups, so they rely more and more on their algorithms to make up for it. To me, that’s why it’s hard to rely on just the topline, as their algorithms can be skewed, which ends with results like a “red wave” that *never* materialized.
but the 2022 polls were very accurate! the problem that year wasn’t that polls said there’d be a red wave; it’s that polls said there would be no red wave, but pundits didn’t believe the polls!
Sorry! You’re right, ie other than Simon Rosenberg, most of the media was playing into the “red wave” narrative and not the polls. It was 2020 that the polling was off significantly and hence why many were skeptical of the 2022 polling and spun their own story instead…