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Hard Look at Political Polls – What They Miss
The Assocation of Mature American Citizens ^ | July 22, 2020 | Robert B. Charles

Posted on 07/25/2020 10:35:46 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Brace yourself for wave upon wave of … political polls. The latest show President Trump lagging presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, as usual. But stop. Let us do what no one does – look BEHIND these polls, understand the process and bias in polling.

Take two recent polls, by NPR/PBS/Marist (NPR) and ABC/Washington Post (ABC). Both report new anti-Trump findings. Take a moment and unpack them.

MSN.com – like may non-technical, left-leaning sites – summarizes both. A stinging line punctuates a leading paragraph. Says MSN, NPR’s poll “has Biden beating Trump 60 percent to 35 percent among suburban voters.” ABC’s poll “is the latest to show former Vice President Joe Biden on a roll … up by a 52 percent to 43 percent margin among suburban voters …”

Okay, so narrative is set – “Biden beating Trump,” “Biden on a roll,” stark numbers. Most readers go no further, but MSN inserts links to suggest you can – so let us do it. See: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-polls-show-joe-biden-is-winning-suburbanites-by-a-historic-margin/ar-BB16Vu0y.

Go to links. What you see is “methodology,” on NPR’s poll some 61 categories defining 1,640 interviewees. Who is going to study 61 categories? Not many – but we are. Here is what you learn.

On process, the survey was done in English and Spanish (no word how many of each), demographic data lags to 2017, interviews were not all “registered voters,” sample size of small groups were unreported, cell phones for business were not accepted, and no response rate is listed. That is, no report of how many calls resulted in no contact, or “no thank you, not interested in NPR’s survey.”

(Excerpt) Read more at amac.us ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Delaware; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: abc; biden; businesses; cellphones; defundnpr; defundpbs; demographics; districtofcolumbia; election2020; jeffbezos; landlines; mediabias; november3; npr; pbs; polls; trump; washingtoncompost; washingtonpost
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1 posted on 07/25/2020 10:35:46 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They mostly just miss the fact that all us Trump supporters will lie to them to their face and tell them the opposite of what we believe

There is absolutely no accounting for that in polling. None

I’ll ask you FREEPERS out there right now - Pollster calls you and asked you who you support what would you say?

I tell them I support Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden


2 posted on 07/25/2020 10:39:18 PM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guv-mint you get is the Trump winning express ! Yea haw ! Trump pence II!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Polls are garbage. They are only used to set the narrative and prepare ground for election fraud.


3 posted on 07/25/2020 10:42:57 PM PDT by eclectic (Liberalism is a mental disorder)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The “money” for pollsters is in marketing. That’s their “meat and potatoes”.
They give “potential product buyers” a larger influence than they have politically.


4 posted on 07/25/2020 10:46:16 PM PDT by mrsmith (US Media: "Every cop is a criminal; ALL the (non-'white') sinners saints!")
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Here’s another article regarding the BS that are polls: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_brian_joondeph/presidential_polls_are_deja_vu_all_over_again


5 posted on 07/25/2020 10:50:07 PM PDT by Repeal 16-17 (Let me know when the Shooting starts.)
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To: Truthoverpower

We do not ever answer their calls. I have a screening app.
If I do not recognize the incoming number I trigger the screening app. 99.999% never ever respond. They hang up immediately.
My entire family has this app. I introduced them to it. We all use it. We are all Trump supporters. They do not know we exist. As planned. We are primed. Chomping at the bit to go to the polls and once again vote for Donald J. Trump for President.
Each of us would crawl naked through a mile of broken glass to cast a vote for President Trump. No vote in this day and age is more important.
Our countries future is in the balance and Trump is the man standing in the breach holding the fort for the American way of life.


6 posted on 07/25/2020 11:09:07 PM PDT by ocrp1982
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

7 posted on 07/25/2020 11:16:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: ocrp1982

Sounds good. What is the app??


8 posted on 07/25/2020 11:20:04 PM PDT by dodger
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
FTA: That is, no report of how many calls resulted in no contact, or “no thank you, not interested in NPR’s survey.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And, I'm sure none of them counted responses like mine during the last 0b0z0 campaign -- when a Sweet-voiced Young Thing called and asked me to participate in a "nation-wide 'survey'":

SYT: "How do you feel things are going in our nation?"

TXnMA: "Well, considering that we have an alien Muslim communist usurper illegally squatting in the White Hut, and a criminal traitor as Secretary of State -- both doing their damndest to destroy everything that's right and good about the America that I served to protect -- I'd say that things are not going terribly well!
NEXT QUESTION?"

SYT: (Along about "White Hut", I heard a sharp gasp and an "Eeeep!")

TXnMA: And, when I asked, "NEXT QUESTION?"...

SYT -- HUNG UP ON ME!   '-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't know what she filled in for the rest of my answers...

TXnMA
  

9 posted on 07/26/2020 12:29:22 AM PDT by TXnMA (Anagram: "PANDEMIC --> DEM PANIC")
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To: Truthoverpower

I hang up on pollsters. Every time. Honestly, with the direction we’re headed I feel like I’m endangering my home and family.


10 posted on 07/26/2020 12:58:10 AM PDT by albie
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
"With respect to age, only 26 percent of NPR’s respondents were aged 45 to 59. This may be a major flaw, as 35 percent of voters in 2016 were over 50, and NPR’s survey appears to wholly omit voters over 59. This is particularly meaningful, as 25 percent of all voters in 2016 were over 65."
11 posted on 07/26/2020 1:37:31 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
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To: Truthoverpower

They haven’t called me, but if they did, I would do EXACTLY what you would. And even beyond that, I’m thinking of registering as a Democrat, just because the delusion needs to come crashing about their ears like an implosion in the wee hours of Nov. 4, 2020.


12 posted on 07/26/2020 2:50:01 AM PDT by definitelynotaliberal (I believe it! He's alive! Sweet Jesus!)
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To: Truthoverpower

A) nobody answers the phone anymore because of all the scammers. If the pollsters would leave messages and give people a chance to check them out before calling back they would get a better response rate via phone.

B) the article brings up an excellent point on screening out small business phones.

C) there is a factor of political intimidation due to Democratic cities not enforcing their own laws with respect to protestors who destroy people’s businesses. There is a reason why the secret ballot is secret, and polling violates that.

I haven’t gotten a polling query where I live EVER, and as I live in a battleground state where they spend a great deal of money to run wall to wall political ads, that seems odd.


13 posted on 07/26/2020 3:38:07 AM PDT by BlackAdderess (The GOP needs to pick another color. It is a matter of time before the Dems will want red back)
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To: BlackAdderess
nobody answers the phone anymore because of all the scammers.

Pretty much spot on.

I have 'noborobo' app on my comcast landline {I know two things that most people here are against} and also the name/number comes up on the tv screen if it is on.

The app lets one ring from the robots and then disconnects {usually}, if they get through they don't usually leave a voice mail, and I only answer an unknown call if I want to have little sport with them {like telling them their mother is here a she is a lousy lewinsky}.

On my cell phone , if you are not listed in my directory, I NEVER answer, but I will listen to the VM and view the texts and make a decision from that.

One more thing {not about phones} but in your email, the scammers are getting more creative and sending emails that realistically look like they come from your current vendors, but only want you to click on one of the active lines, and once you do, havoc will follow.

NEVER click on anything that you are not 100000000% sure that it is legit, even if it comes from a friend or relative.

14 posted on 07/26/2020 3:57:22 AM PDT by USS Alaska (NUKE THE MOOSELIMB, TERRORISTS, NOW!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“ Dig deeper. In the NPR sample, 38 percent are Democrats, only 31 percent Republicans, with 29 percent Independents. Does that overrepresent Democrats v. Republicans, and Independents v. both? What effect does that have on accuracy?”

According to the Washington Post this is an accurate breakdown (more or less) if you factor in only 31 states and DC.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/28/first-time-ever-there-are-fewer-registered-republicans-than-independents/%3FoutputType%3Damp

If you go according to Gallup, Independents sit at 40%, Democrats are 31%, Republicans are 25%
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

By applying the voter registration numbers of 31 states and DC to the rest of the country they do indeed appear to be oversampling Democrats and undersampling Independents, if these numbers hold.


15 posted on 07/26/2020 4:02:57 AM PDT by BlackAdderess (The GOP needs to pick another color. It is a matter of time before the Dems will want red back)
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To: Truthoverpower

I’ll ask you FREEPERS out there right now - Pollster calls you and asked you who you support what would you say?

(((click)))


16 posted on 07/26/2020 4:14:18 AM PDT by Flick Lives (My work's illegal, but at least it's honest. - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds)
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To: ocrp1982; dodger
Yeah, what is the Apps name?


17 posted on 07/26/2020 4:42:02 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The prisons do not fill themselves. Get moving, Barr!)
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To: Truthoverpower

I have been contacted several times. I hang up. Also...If I see an unknown number I most often let it go to voicemail.


18 posted on 07/26/2020 4:53:07 AM PDT by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“But Trump’s overall approval rating was 37 percent in March 2017 – five months after winning election“

From 49% (Nov 9) to 37% (during/after the honeymoon period)? No freakin way.

Proves presidential polls were off by 5-15% then, and probably add another 5-10% as rebellion against fake news polls since then.


19 posted on 07/26/2020 5:20:56 AM PDT by ReaganGeneration2
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I always lie to pollsters. It is my mission to make them useless.

That said, the most important thing revealed here, and common to nearly every poll, is the treatment of hangups, no answers, or refusal to participate.

They just ignore these and move on, as if they never happened. But in the real world of statistical sampling, they did happen, they are critically important, and they cannot be ignored.

Suppose a pollster is told he needs to sample 1000 people for his results to be “statistically significant”. He makes 1000 calls, but 400 of them don’t yield responses. He just continues until he has his 1000. But perhaps he has had to call 1600 or more in total to get 1000 responses. The fact is, those other 600 are samples, for which his response should be included as “UNKNOWN”.

Unknowns must be included in the sample for the statistical calculations about the “confidence interval”, which measures the expected range of variability due to the random sample, and is critical to estimating the “margin of error” that they love to quote. Unknowns can VASTLY reduce the confidence interval (increase the margin of error), when they are properly counted.

Second, when they attempt to sample X percent Democrats and 100-X percent Republicans, the same effect occurs. They will obviously need to sample some excess numbers to get the party bias they want. They just ignore the excess calls. But they don’t vanish. They were sampled. Again they are unknown.

So these statistical abuses ALWAYS have the effect of increasing the quoted “margin of error” by reducing the confidence in the result.

For the curious, “margin of error” means that in the process of taking many samples there will be variation from sample to sample just due to randomness. This is the nature of sampling. A confidence interval is chosen for the study, typically 90%. So a 3% margin of error should be stated “We anticipate that in 90% of the samples taken, the true result is within 3% of the sample. The other 10% of samples would fall outside this range.”

Throw in the Unknowns, and that confidence interval can quickly fall, so it could really mean something like “”We anticipate that in 60% of the samples taken, the true result is within 3% of the sample. The other 40% of samples would fall outside this range.”

Barely better than a coin toss.


20 posted on 07/26/2020 5:35:19 AM PDT by motor_racer (Who will bell the cat?)
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