562
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] chalupapocalypse@lemmy.world 241 points 6 months ago

Polls don't mean shit, go vote

[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 73 points 6 months ago

Yeah, the polls had Hillary winning easily in 2016. Don't trust them.

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 60 points 6 months ago

They had her anywhere between a 70-90% chance to win. If you predict 90% chance that something will happen, and it always happens, your prediction is wrong because you should have predicted 100%.

When I hear someone say "you can't trust the polls because they got 2016 'wrong'" they are just telling me they don't understand statistics.

[-] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

They had her anywhere between a 70-90% chance to win

And its important to note that these predictions were for the pop vote, which she did actually win, so they were actually right.

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 9 points 6 months ago

And its important to note that these predictions were for the pop vote, which she did actually win, so they were actually right.

I'm not sure this is entirely true. Many polls just look at the popular vote, but most of the polls that claim "chance of winning" take into account the EC.

[-] Pips@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 months ago

538 had her going into the election with a 70% chance of winning the electoral college. Nate Silver also went on multiple shows basically doing everything he could to get people to understand that meant 3 out of 10 times she loses.

[-] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

No, 538 (and RCP?) actually has a rolling projection of 'real' chance to win the EC. But the chances of Hillary declined from >90% to 70% in the last week or so. When she was >90% everybody would say it looked like she was going to win, and that's what people remember.

[-] Furbag@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

But the chances of Hillary declined from >90% to 70% in the last week or so.

Oh yeah, the Comey Probe. Back in the days when having the FBI open an investigation into you was enough to kill your presidential aspirations.

Or at least that was the case for Hillary Clinton and the moderate voter bloc, but somehow Donald Trump is not held to such high standards.

[-] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 15 points 6 months ago

It's been awhile since I read anything about that, but it seems like the last time I read about it, was something along: "80% of polls have Hillary projected to win", but the actual polls that they were using were all almost within the margin of error.

tl;dr 80% had Hillary winning by about 2-3%.

[-] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

margin of error

People in almost never speak about the margin of error when presenting a poll, especially one that's favorable to them.

f you look at the fine print, and see the margin of error percentage, then you apply the maximum amount to both people in the race, you'll see a lot of times it's a tie.

[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

I understand the point you're making about probabilities, but we're speaking in the context of politics. Polls accurately predicted the results in 2008 and 2012. Something fundamentally changed in 2016, and the polls were off across the board.

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 9 points 6 months ago

And "polls were historically accurate" in 2022.

And in reality we are talking about an weighted error difference of about 1.3/1.5 points between 2008/2012 and 2016. It's not like they got it massively wrong.

[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago
[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

You said something changed, and then I showed how last election they were actually more accurate than in the past. And I already pointed out that they were "wrong" about 2016. So I'm not sure what your point is about this.

[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

they are just telling me they don’t understand statistics.

You're right, but in fairness to the regular person who gets their news from regular news outlets, they were being told that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning when in reality it was more like 75%. The fact is while everyone was cocky in 2016 and nervous in 2020 I was the opposite because I followed the polls and Biden in 2020 had consistently bigger leads on Trump than Clinton in 2016 with even bigger leads in swing states. His odds of winning were much greater than hers and the likely margin of victory was much higher, but they were being underestimated by a media machine that was absolutely snakebit after going all in on congratulating HRC in June for being the first woman president with a dem supermajority in both houses of congress and flipping Texas blue.

[-] TheKMAP@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 6 months ago

I know right? Some people haven't played XCOM, and it shows.

[-] Cosmicomical@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

What are you talking about? Polls are not valid statistics, they are riddled with biases that can't be eliminated.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

the polls had Hillary winning easily

Well Hillary didnt pay off her hookers 2 weeks before the election... like that kinda means he cheated. So Id say its a lot harder to win when you play by the rules. And Im not defending Hillary cuz I know she shafted Bernie, but what she did is not even on the same scope as what donnie rapist did/does on a daily basis.

[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

paying off hookers isn't actually cheating, the issue is that he used campaign funds to do it and that's fraud (but not electoral fraud)

[-] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

They do and they don't. Some people see polls and say "why bother". Some people see polls and scream "GET OUT AND VOTE". They may not be indicative of the final outcome, but they are a motivating factor for a lot of people.

[-] Furbag@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

The first sane take in this whole thread. Modern polling is unreliable when the margins for victory in certain elections can come down to literally a single vote in some cases.

Show up and get counted when it matters.

load more comments (41 replies)
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
562 points (94.5% liked)

politics

18894 readers
3276 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS