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The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative
NYT ^ | 12/31/2022 | Jim Rutenberg, Ken Bensinger and Steve Eder

Posted on 12/31/2022 5:54:28 AM PST by semimojo

Surveys showing strength for Republicans, often from the same partisan pollsters, set Democratic klaxons blaring in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Colorado. Coupled with the political factors already favoring Republicans — including inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity — the skewed polls helped feed what quickly became an inescapable political narrative: A Republican wave election was about to hit the country with hurricane force.

Democrats in each of those states went on to win their Senate races. Ms. Murray clobbered Ms. Smiley by nearly 15 points…

Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past.

That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that more readily suited the needs of the sprawling and voracious political content machine — one sustained by ratings and clicks, and famished for fresh data and compelling narratives.

The skewed red-wave surveys polluted polling averages, which are relied upon by campaigns, donors, voters and the news media. It fed the home-team boosterism of an expanding array of right-wing media outlets — from Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and “The Charlie Kirk Show” to Fox News and its top-rated prime-time lineup. And it spilled over into coverage by mainstream news organizations, including The Times, that amplified the alarms being sounded about potential Democratic doom.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:
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To: semimojo
Find a reputable news source. Not the NY Slimes.
21 posted on 12/31/2022 6:32:22 AM PST by McGruff (Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up - Barack Obama)
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To: ScottinVA

You are spot on. Unfortunately, most here just want to whine about fraud, which somehow can never be proven. Do you want to win elections? Pick good candidates, and highlight issues that are important to people.


22 posted on 12/31/2022 6:33:34 AM PST by bigdaddy45
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To: semimojo

23 posted on 12/31/2022 6:34:28 AM PST by McGruff (Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up - Barack Obama)
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To: ARGLOCKGUY

It is who counts the votes that matters.

Exactly.

And until we end the corruption in elections, articles such as this are pure BS and not worth reading.


24 posted on 12/31/2022 6:34:33 AM PST by old curmudgeon (There is no situation so bad that the federal government can not make worse.)
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To: semimojo

Polling is useless as a tool to gauge public opinion — loss of landlines, bots for online polls, and call screenings on cells have castrated them. Even man-on-the-street polls are useless as to get a decent sample size, you’d need to poll in cities that are over-represented by liberals.

Where polls do work, however, are in the realm of disinformation and vote pattern disruption due to instilling overconfidence — usually among the gullible on the right.

At this point, it can’t be fixed. Anyone putting stock in polls these days are in danger of ideological bankruptcy. Stop following and cheering polls…

Vote.


25 posted on 12/31/2022 6:37:19 AM PST by Magnatron
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To: semimojo

polling doesn’t factor in the cheat


26 posted on 12/31/2022 6:48:18 AM PST by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: Michael.SF.
Yep. Lake proved there were many thousands of tainted ballots that should not have been counted and large numbers of disenfranchised voters, but that wasn't good enough for this judge. He made her prove it was all done intentionally, knowing before the trial even started that he would rule in Hobbs' favor.

Imagine if this exact same scenario had played out in a Dem heavy district where their candidate lost a statewide race by 0.6%. There would be hell to pay.
27 posted on 12/31/2022 6:52:11 AM PST by Dan in Wichita
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To: griswold3

Two of the dumbest campaign promises was a federal ban on abortion and the sunset provision for social security. Republicans were idiots to even mention those. So much for states rights and getting rid of social security is a political death knell. We’re lucky to even barely have the house due to these stupid issues they put forth front and center.


28 posted on 12/31/2022 6:55:41 AM PST by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016 democratic )
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To: Michael.SF.

In her lawsuit she explicitly stated she’d find intent to cheat. Oops.


29 posted on 12/31/2022 6:56:51 AM PST by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016 democratic )
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To: semimojo

Why does ANYONE read the NY Times anymore? It is pure Democrat/Leftist propaganda.

The election was stolen by early voting, ballot harvesting and lack of voter ID. It is only going to get worse with clowns like AG Garland as our top law enforcement dog.


30 posted on 12/31/2022 6:57:42 AM PST by Kaiser8408a (z)
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To: semimojo

There should have been a red tsunami.

The election was stolen.
It’s those Italian satellites.
And no one can tell me differently.
Q talked about it.


31 posted on 12/31/2022 7:12:43 AM PST by xyz2
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To: semimojo

Jim, Ken, and Steve...part of the journocommie cabal, eh? WE KNOW the truth...now, what happens?⁴


32 posted on 12/31/2022 7:20:59 AM PST by goodnesswins (The Chinese are teaching calculus to their 3rd graders while ours are trying to pick a pronoun.)
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To: griswold3
Since the election debacle I have seen many theories for the surprise. This time the portion of Times article this side of the pay wall says the polls were wrong. I've seen McConnell blamed, the quality of the candidates, Donald Trump all blamed.

No one has replied to this theory.

From an earlier reply:

Both the 2020 election the 2022 election have demonstrated that neither the facts on the ground nor the issues debated in the press (or ignored by the press) are cogent enough to overcome the infrastructure advantage owned by the Democrats.

If the Hunter Biden laptop story could not gain traction, either in 2020 or in 2024, we must acknowledge that there is something going on beyond our capacity to win elections when every historical precedent tells us we should have sailed to victory.

The problem is not only Rona McDaniel, although of course she has to go, the problem is not only misfeasance by Mitch McConnell, the problem is not poor candidates (Doctor Oz, for example, was a reasonably able candidate who should have won in the conditions that obtained in Pennsylvania). No, the problem is best seen as a problem of infrastructure.

We all know the Democrats are advantaged in the media to a value of hundreds of millions of dollars but they are also advantaged in the gathering and spending of campaign contribution.

More, the Democrats have disproportionately more organizations supplying the party with foot soldiers who can deliver live voters or who can harvest and transport dubious ballots in battleground races where it counts and where the pollsters might not have the algorithm to acess Democrat get out the vote capacity. Getting out the vote power is difficult to measure if, as I suggest, that power lies inchoate waiting only for the machine to go into high gear.

Gramsci, communist of The Frankfurt School and his followers, have accomplished their long walk through the institutions so they have co-opted virtually every political, governmental, nongovernmental, cultural and educational agency in the land. All the millions of people associated with these institutions, dependent on these institutions for their rice bowls to be filled, are likely Democrat voters, otherwise they cannot prosper within these institutions. Many of them serve as foot soldiers.

Perhaps the most important institution subverted by Democrats is the educational establishment that actively churns out Democrats from kindergarten through postgraduate studies. By the time these indoctrinated individuals approach the voting booth, the indoctrination is so complete that distractions like Hunter Biden's laptop pointing to gross corruption of a presidential candidate are simply discounted. In other words, the quality of the candidate on the Democrat side does not matter, hence, a president can be elected who cannot safely venture from his basement and a Senator can be elected who humiliates himself in debate. These voters are conditioned as though they were in a Skinner box and the stimulus that comes from the Republican Party simply does not register.

That assumes that a Republican message will be conveyed by the media to actually penetrate that Skinner box.

For those individuals who do not reflexively vote Democrat as a result of indoctrination, the Democrats have brilliantly exploited data mining. Data mining tells marketers your shoe size and it tells Democrats your electoral proclivities and vulnerabilities which they exploit because they have legions of foot soldiers who will expend the shoe leather to personally approach data mined voters whose vulnerabilities have been psychologically evaluated. These foot soldiers have been prompted to actually psychologically exploit those vulnerabilities on an individual and personal level.

Republicans are competing with old tools and old methods in the digital world that represents one of the three great revolutions in the history of mankind.

Studies have revealed that Google can, and no doubt has, critically influenced election merely by adjusting its algorithms to mislead curious voters who use their search facility. How do pollsters measure this? Algorithms vs algorithms?

All of these features come together to create a formidable infrastructure that increasingly and inevitably produces Democrat victories.

Occasionally a charismatic figure like Donald Trump can break through, especially if the Democrats were asleep at the switch out of hubris and disregard for Trump. But overall, and increasingly, the fate of the Republican Party is slipping out of its control. 2016 will be seen as an outlier because Democrats have since fully recovered and deployed all their resources.

Unless and until the degree and nature of the problem is understood, we will continue to be frustrated and in our frustration we will point fingers at individuals, at candidates, and we will continue to believe that we can win next time if only we can get an honest count. Mitch McConnell is not the problem, he is just one of the problems that cannot be overcome in the landscape and infrastructure that exists.

The infrastructure problem has taken us well beyond these fixes.


33 posted on 12/31/2022 7:29:13 AM PST by nathanbedford (Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
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To: semimojo

This should be making the media rounds verbatim.


34 posted on 12/31/2022 7:33:27 AM PST by blackdog (The head, hands, and heart, serve even further than the purse. )
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To: nathanbedford

Oz was not a good candidate for rural Pennsylvanian voters.


35 posted on 12/31/2022 7:33:36 AM PST by kosciusko51
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To: napscoordinator
Thanks. I missed that. oops is right.
36 posted on 12/31/2022 7:33:39 AM PST by Michael.SF. ( The problem today: people are more concerned about feelings than responsibility)
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To: kosciusko51
Compared to whom? His opponent? Please!


37 posted on 12/31/2022 7:35:20 AM PST by nathanbedford (Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
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To: kosciusko51

And Fetterman was? Does not say much for rural PA voters.


38 posted on 12/31/2022 7:35:22 AM PST by Michael.SF. ( The problem today: people are more concerned about feelings than responsibility)
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To: semimojo

It was the ladies who wanted to right to kill their kids who won the election for the Dems, along with some poorly chosen candidates.


39 posted on 12/31/2022 7:36:44 AM PST by Clemenza
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To: nathanbedford

He was not a candidate that would draw people to the polls. Just another elite carpetbagger with no real association to the rural voters. My guess is that the GOP lost in turnout with these voters.


40 posted on 12/31/2022 7:39:37 AM PST by kosciusko51
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