What a great piece of about polls. People seems to be reading the polls that confirms their bias. And many fake polls are ment to influx the public debate rather than gives information. Thanks
This is a fair question! I tried to get at this in the piece, but I do think polls serve an important democratic purpose. For one, I think we can all benefit from more information about the world around us. As I wrote, we are not great at perceiving public opinion outside of our narrow bubbles -- polls help us step outside of our echo chambers and have a better understanding of what our country is thinking. This may not be popular to say, but polls are also important for politicians. In a democratic republic, we hope that politicians will balance between following their consciences *and* following the public will. Polls help politicians know the public will. To take a current example, many Republicans in Congress know (from polls) that they are vulnerable in their next elections, which has influenced the GOP agenda, what has or hasn’t passed Congress, votes on the Iran war, etc. It’s not fashionable to admit that these sorts of decisions are driven by polls, but in my opinion that’s a good thing: politicians can see via polls that their constituents are unhappy, which can lead them to changing their behavior in order to line up better with the public will.
Thoughtful and timely article as always, thank you! I do think that using AI-generated art cheapens your brand and erodes trust in your otherwise reliably high-quality content.
Wow I had no idea. Thanks! I have shied away from engaging in polling in the past, except online (and even then I would stop some surveys when feeling I was giving out too much private information, during the pandemic especially). I also have phone scams calling my phone many times a day so I simply don't answer anymore. But I will try to be more aware of polling and try to contribute to them in the future. Thanks for this lesson, Gabe!!
This was an interesting read and helpful to understanding polling. I can see how a lack of polling might not be great either. However, since people report on polls that have an outcome that supports their story the public gets a non-probabilistic view of even "good" probabilistic polls. Also any weighting by selected demographic bins is inherently very fudgy. I'll continue to ignore polls.
Excellent demonstration of our inaccurate understanding of the composition of the American population simply because we think "everyone is like the people I know." Thanks.
A little late to the dance. I pay no attention to polls. They don't influence my voting. The League of Women Voters has a tremendous guide, now on line. They ask candidates questions. There is no partisanship or editorial guidelines. I have used them for over 50 years A lot of times a local newspaper or another source will do the same thing
If I run across a position I know nothing about the candidates I don't vote
You do such a great job of researching your titled subject. That being said everything you wrote supports my belief that polls are fradulent and getting worse - good ones leaving/left and fake ones increasing. In my opinion more and more voters rely on these sad polls either voting with the poll results or much worse and maybe more voters deciding; "I don't need to vote because my candidate is so far ahead or behind that my vote won't count". I personally believe that a vote represents what that voter thinks from their own personal expereince and research and should not be a product of what their "fellow countrymen are thinking". That "thinking" becomes what is the result of all the voters tabulated after voting day in that winning candidate.
I believe your siting of the graph of American over and under estimation should be read every week by every voter, twice a day by every news reporter and every hour by every social media writer.
To be fair, Nate Silver’s final polling average in 2024 showed Harris up by one percentage point, which means the final result (Trump winning by 1.5 percentage points) was very much within the margin of error and not very statistically distinguishable from what the polls predicted. There are definitely examples of polling misses, but personally I wouldn’t include 2024 as one of them.
Rather than polls I much rather see people running for any political office throughly vetted. I see people being elected and then we find out about their sketchy background.
I disagree with Gabe's assertions that more well run polls will satisfy this problem. I get calls from pollsters all the time and I refuse to take them. I don't want to give out private information to pollsters collecting data that, even from legitimate polling firms we don't really know where our data will end up. If I were to take the call, I would be inclined to give false information so that they couldn't peg me for other purposes. I think many people are like me and that's why polls are no longer relevant (or necessary -- there are other ways to see how the public is leaning).
I also think that polls can lead people to vote in certain ways simply because they want to be in line with their neighbors. Or some contrarians to deliberately vote against what the poll is showing just because of their contrarian nature.
I personally no longer trust polls. In fact, I think the Republicans will retain both the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterms. All the glee by the Democrats over the current polls doesn't alternate the fact that the Democratic Party is widely unpopular moreso than Trump is. And when voters enter the voting booth, most of them are going to vote on the candidate and who he or she is and where they stand and not be voting specifically against Trump.
So I think once again, the polls are misleading us and Democrats in November will once again be wringing their hands asking once again what went wrong.
What a great piece of about polls. People seems to be reading the polls that confirms their bias. And many fake polls are ment to influx the public debate rather than gives information. Thanks
Another great teaching post, Gabe. Thanks.
Why do we need polls at all?!! What do polls add to the election? To encourage a mob decision instead of an individual decision?
This is a fair question! I tried to get at this in the piece, but I do think polls serve an important democratic purpose. For one, I think we can all benefit from more information about the world around us. As I wrote, we are not great at perceiving public opinion outside of our narrow bubbles -- polls help us step outside of our echo chambers and have a better understanding of what our country is thinking. This may not be popular to say, but polls are also important for politicians. In a democratic republic, we hope that politicians will balance between following their consciences *and* following the public will. Polls help politicians know the public will. To take a current example, many Republicans in Congress know (from polls) that they are vulnerable in their next elections, which has influenced the GOP agenda, what has or hasn’t passed Congress, votes on the Iran war, etc. It’s not fashionable to admit that these sorts of decisions are driven by polls, but in my opinion that’s a good thing: politicians can see via polls that their constituents are unhappy, which can lead them to changing their behavior in order to line up better with the public will.
Thoughtful and timely article as always, thank you! I do think that using AI-generated art cheapens your brand and erodes trust in your otherwise reliably high-quality content.
Thanks for your feedback -- I appreciate it.
Wow I had no idea. Thanks! I have shied away from engaging in polling in the past, except online (and even then I would stop some surveys when feeling I was giving out too much private information, during the pandemic especially). I also have phone scams calling my phone many times a day so I simply don't answer anymore. But I will try to be more aware of polling and try to contribute to them in the future. Thanks for this lesson, Gabe!!
This was an interesting read and helpful to understanding polling. I can see how a lack of polling might not be great either. However, since people report on polls that have an outcome that supports their story the public gets a non-probabilistic view of even "good" probabilistic polls. Also any weighting by selected demographic bins is inherently very fudgy. I'll continue to ignore polls.
Too many polls with bias results seems to tarnish all polls with no credibility. Maybe a different way needs to be found to report opinions.
Excellent demonstration of our inaccurate understanding of the composition of the American population simply because we think "everyone is like the people I know." Thanks.
Not a good season for election officials either. Or their senior citizen poll workers and county clerks.
A little late to the dance. I pay no attention to polls. They don't influence my voting. The League of Women Voters has a tremendous guide, now on line. They ask candidates questions. There is no partisanship or editorial guidelines. I have used them for over 50 years A lot of times a local newspaper or another source will do the same thing
If I run across a position I know nothing about the candidates I don't vote
Polls have destroyed our civics education
You do such a great job of researching your titled subject. That being said everything you wrote supports my belief that polls are fradulent and getting worse - good ones leaving/left and fake ones increasing. In my opinion more and more voters rely on these sad polls either voting with the poll results or much worse and maybe more voters deciding; "I don't need to vote because my candidate is so far ahead or behind that my vote won't count". I personally believe that a vote represents what that voter thinks from their own personal expereince and research and should not be a product of what their "fellow countrymen are thinking". That "thinking" becomes what is the result of all the voters tabulated after voting day in that winning candidate.
I believe your siting of the graph of American over and under estimation should be read every week by every voter, twice a day by every news reporter and every hour by every social media writer.
Thanks for all your good work!!!!!!!!!!!!
I still remember how the polls had favoured Harris/Walz & the 😡🍊🤡 still won. Polls are useless in my opinion.
To be fair, Nate Silver’s final polling average in 2024 showed Harris up by one percentage point, which means the final result (Trump winning by 1.5 percentage points) was very much within the margin of error and not very statistically distinguishable from what the polls predicted. There are definitely examples of polling misses, but personally I wouldn’t include 2024 as one of them.
Before or after both Leon, Trump & Elon’s baby mom said that the voting machines were tampered with.
Rather than polls I much rather see people running for any political office throughly vetted. I see people being elected and then we find out about their sketchy background.
I disagree with Gabe's assertions that more well run polls will satisfy this problem. I get calls from pollsters all the time and I refuse to take them. I don't want to give out private information to pollsters collecting data that, even from legitimate polling firms we don't really know where our data will end up. If I were to take the call, I would be inclined to give false information so that they couldn't peg me for other purposes. I think many people are like me and that's why polls are no longer relevant (or necessary -- there are other ways to see how the public is leaning).
I also think that polls can lead people to vote in certain ways simply because they want to be in line with their neighbors. Or some contrarians to deliberately vote against what the poll is showing just because of their contrarian nature.
I personally no longer trust polls. In fact, I think the Republicans will retain both the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterms. All the glee by the Democrats over the current polls doesn't alternate the fact that the Democratic Party is widely unpopular moreso than Trump is. And when voters enter the voting booth, most of them are going to vote on the candidate and who he or she is and where they stand and not be voting specifically against Trump.
So I think once again, the polls are misleading us and Democrats in November will once again be wringing their hands asking once again what went wrong.