Posted on 10/12/2024 8:17:59 AM PDT by nwrep
By Nate Silver
So as long as I’ve been covering politics, people have been fascinated by internal polls (surveys that the campaigns themselves or closely affiliated partisan groups conduct). Especially given the high-profile public polling misses in recent years, surely the campaigns know the real story of the race?
Well, no. Or at least, not necessarily. If you really knew what the campaigns knew, that would probably provide valuable information. But unless you’re an Iranian or Russian hacker, you probably don’t. Instead, you know what the campaigns want you to know.
Suppose that you’ve bugged both the Harris and Trump campaign HQs. You know every internal poll they’ve conducted all campaign long. How much of an advantage would this provide you versus public polling averages?
Probably some. Campaigns have access to proprietary information that public pollsters lack, like data mining they’ve done based on campaign contacts. And in general, the money in the polling industry is in the campaign side of the business, so they may be getting a higher grade of pollster talent. But there are also reasons to be wary. Sometimes the campaigns are just fooling themselves.
One issue is that campaigns have different incentives for conducting election polls than media or nonpartisan organizations. Rather than seeking to predict the outcome, they’re trying to make strategic decisions, usually about where to allocate resources or how to adopt more effective messaging.
A second issue is that campaigns face principal-agent problems. Can the boss and her inner circle handle bad news? Most organizations have an optimism bias: for instance, internal estimates of project completion timelines are usually too rosy. And as I discuss in my book, collegiality (keeping the boss and other principals happy) matters a lot in Campaignland in particular. There isn’t a lot of objective feedback to tell you who’s good at their job and who isn’t when you’re only conducting one campaign every two or four years, it’s staffed by hundreds of professionals, and the result is often based on factors outside of the campaign’s control. It’s not a place for rogue contrarians who will stick to the data no matter what and deliver bad news.
These aren’t just theoretical concerns. In 2012, a reporter for the New Republic got access to the Mitt Romney campaign internals after the campaign was over. The polls were biased toward Romney by an average of almost 5 points.
Specifically, presidential internal polls are biased by an average of about 3 points toward their candidates and a bit larger than that for Congressional and downballot races. The most infamous case is from the Republican primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in 2014, in which House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to David Brat by 11 (!) points after a publicly released internal poll had shown Cantor ahead by 34 (!!).
Cantor’s pollster? None other than John McLaughlin, who is now one of the Trump campaign’s chief pollsters.
Yeah, ‘old Nate now advises to ignore internal polls, especially the ones showing Dems losing. Uh, huh.
Says the guy who manipulates public opinion through “polling” for a living.
Anyone who doesn’t realize that polls can be faked is clueless, and that was true long before AI. With AI, polls are the easiest and cheapest propaganda tool the world has ever known. And 538 is the worst.
Too funny. A pollster saying, “Believe me, don’t believe anybody else.”
Funny how his examples are two GOP candidates being “wrong.” Maybe Rats are never wrong as they cheat so much.
Why you should mostly ignore Nate Silver: 2016.
And what makes Mr. Silver think that Democrats didn't heist that one? I think they did.
I ignore ALL polls. Internal and especially MSM polls.
He got one right and he is deemed by his leftist bullshat groupies like you as the best in the business. Your peril is pretending you aren’t a RAT or a RINO.
LOL 🤡🤡🤡🤡
If both overstate, then this is kinda worthless.
Romney took a dive on that election anyways basically disappearing for the last two months before the election .
I’ll take the risk. Nate Silver is an ignore on my list based on past performance.
LOL. Have to admit that was funny.
“Cantor’s pollster? None other than John McLaughlin, who is now one of the Trump campaign’s chief pollsters.”
The singer? The talk show host is no longer with us.
He actually is. He has a beard now.
Chris Christie did a great job in helping Obama on election day, no doubt momentum shifted. Silver got his reputation that cycle because Obama campaign was feeding him precinct bu precinct stats, what was that but an ‘internal poll” of the fraud they were carrying out in 2012. Their method that year was to bus people around, there were plenty of observations of that then, which have never been repeated for all the scenarios of fraud in 2020, now they move ballots, not bodies ( Bridgeport CT dem primary 2024). 2012, no doubt the great “Community Organizer” had given each precinct organization a quota and told them, we don’t care now you get there, jus do it. Silver no doub was fed the info. how do you account for his not measuring up to thatleel of accuracy snce that time?
Not disputing that. McCain did it too.
For over a decade, I've called it "The RINO Swan Dive."
Internal polls are the ONLY ones to listen to. All of the others are designed to fake it and push people into a herd “everyone else likes Kamala” decision.
Nate has an agenda. It’s “look at me and give me money.”
His points about Romney are meaningless. Romney and the people around Romney were moronic deep staters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.