Thank you. I have been too lazy to put something like this together.
Typical liberal poll:
Who do you prefer as President?
A- Stalwart savior of all that is good, Joe Biden
B- Evil, lying scumbag who wants to kill you, Donald Trump.
Thanks for the quick explanation of MOE. I use a fair amount of statistics, but polling/sampling isn’t part of that. I had never had to figure out a MOE.
My favorite is the, “is the country headed in the right direction” question. Both sides recognize it’s not! The question always implies that it’s the president who is responsible. The cause/effect is never explored, just the sentiment (emotion) of the moment.
Thanks for this accurate explanation.
I am far more cynical. Knowing the reputation and business model of most who report “poll results”, the total absence of transparency into their process, lack of peer review and accountability, and the enormous value to be had from cheating, I beiI’ve most polls are manufactured. Fake data created by algorithms that can produce any desired outcome with internals to match. In the same way that Obama created a composite girlfriend, any skilled software engineer can create a composite voter, with sufficient randomization but with a clear central tendency.
If you already know the desired outcome, it’s just a matter of creating the data that statistically supports it.
2016 marked the year that polling ceased being an objective way of statistically estimating voter sentiment and became a cheap, fast, easy, and surreptitious tool for influencing public opinion.