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The New York Times: Ignore the Polls
The New York Times ^ | Oct. 13, 2024, 7:00 a.m. ET | Ezra Klein, Opinion Columnist

Posted on 10/13/2024 11:59:01 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Here’s a bit of advice to help maintain your sanity over the next few weeks until Election Day: Just ignore the polls. Unless you’re a campaign professional or a gambler, you’re probably looking at them for the same reason the rest of us are: to know who’ll win. Or at least to feel like you know who’ll win. But they just can’t tell you that.

Back in 2016, Harry Enten, then at FiveThirtyEight, calculated the final polling error in every presidential election between 1968 and 2012. On average, the polls missed by two percentage points. In 2016, an American Association for Public Opinion Research postmortem found that the average error of the national polls was 2.2 points, but the polls of individual states were off by 5.1 points. In 2020, the national polls were off by 4.5 points and the state-level polls missed, again, by 5.1 points.

You could imagine a world in which these errors are random and cancel one another out. Perhaps Donald Trump’s support is undercounted by three points in Michigan but overcounted by three points in Wisconsin. But errors often systematically favor one candidate or the other. In both 2016 and 2020, for instance, state-level polls tended to undercount Trump supporters. The polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s margin by three points in 2016 and Joe Biden’s margin by 4.3 points in 2020.

In a blowout election, an error of a few points in one direction or another is meaningless. In the California Senate race, for example, Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is leading Steve Garvey, a Republican, by between 17 and 33 points, depending on the poll. Even a polling error of 10 points wouldn’t matter to the outcome of the race.


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


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 0001sheerpanic
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Ezra is always good for a laugh or two. Or three.
1 posted on 10/13/2024 11:59:01 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Yeah, ignore the polls. It will make it much easier for you to believe it when they tell you Heels Up “won” the popular vote by 15 million “votes”, and “won” the “election”, while winning only 350 counties.


2 posted on 10/13/2024 12:01:34 PM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The old grey lady is clutching her pearls.


3 posted on 10/13/2024 12:03:00 PM PDT by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh (there will come a day when FR rejects articles from the NYT, et al. as "Commie trash, no thank you")
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
In the California Senate race, for example, Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is leading Steve Garvey, a Republican, by between 17 and 33 points, depending on the poll.

California really is too far gone, isn't it?

4 posted on 10/13/2024 12:04:32 PM PDT by fhayek
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To: Sicon

Polls don’t affect my vote one way or another. I just don’t trust them because I think a lot of people don’t answer them or don’t answer them truthfully; and I think some are designed to deliver a predetermined result - those are not information, they’re propaganda.


5 posted on 10/13/2024 12:05:44 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Those new yawkers sure are desperate, what with all the hit and hate articles streaming out of there.


6 posted on 10/13/2024 12:08:51 PM PDT by doorgunner69 (I don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. i don't think he knows what he said either)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
--- "Ignore the Polls"

We've ignored the media polls for decades. Nothing like the NYT coming late to the party. Again.

7 posted on 10/13/2024 12:12:55 PM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: fhayek

Garvey doesn’t have any money. His campaign is so invisible he might as well not be running at all.


8 posted on 10/13/2024 12:20:57 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (23 years on Free Republic, 12/10/23! More than 8,000 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

They’re getting desperate.


9 posted on 10/13/2024 12:30:14 PM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus”)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Ignore the polls because they are made-up propaganda designed to get you to believe they are something else. Treat them like Nigerian princes.


10 posted on 10/13/2024 12:34:47 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I don't think this article is intended for Trump supporters.

The Times is trying to keep the motivation up for Harris supporters.

-PJ

11 posted on 10/13/2024 12:36:27 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
. . . calculated the final polling error . . . (emphasis added)

This is the key lie. Check back in history to find out how much the polls changed in the last few days before the election. It's usually several percent in favor of the winner. That's when the pollsters trot out the truth, just so they can claim to be accurate.

Up until then, they're all 'push' polls trying to create an opinion, not just measure it. They lie just as much as they think they can get away with - a number that is just small enough that the jump to the "final" number can be justified by claims of last-minute decisions by the previously undecided.
12 posted on 10/13/2024 12:36:59 PM PDT by Phlyer
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To: j.havenfarm
Adam Schiff is one of the most odious individuals who have ever walked the halls of Congress, and yet, he will be the next senator from California.

Garvey will do well to trim his loss to single digits.
13 posted on 10/13/2024 12:38:44 PM PDT by Dan in Wichita
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To: Dan in Wichita

Spot on. Trump could win 40 states and yet barely cause a ripple here. Since the tea party in 2010, conservative waves have broken against the eastern slope of the Sierras.


14 posted on 10/13/2024 12:41:19 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (23 years on Free Republic, 12/10/23! More than 8,000 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: Dan in Wichita

15 posted on 10/13/2024 12:43:07 PM PDT by Veracious Poet (God Speed & Good Luck)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Ignore the polls because the margin or cheating in this election is INFINITE. Tens of millions of illegals partial to the RAT party who let them in and financially supports them (and by coincidence) registered them to vote. Yeah, the 2024 election will be totally legit.


16 posted on 10/13/2024 12:45:05 PM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (DemocRATS have always been the Jackass party, now they are also the Hamas(s) party.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Most reasonable people know the race is over , they are trying to save down ballot rats now


17 posted on 10/13/2024 12:52:21 PM PDT by italianquaker
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Here's an interesting point...

RealClearPolitics posted new national polls from ABC, NBC, and CBS today.

CBS, NBC and ABC have no business releasing Registered Voter polls this close to an election unless they are trying to hide something about the likely voters.

-PJ

18 posted on 10/13/2024 12:55:47 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Political Junkie Too
Also, local NBC 6 TV in Miami released a poll in conjunction with Mason-Dixon, also of Registered Voters, showing Trump up +6 in Florida.

I can only imaging what the Likely Voter sample showed, since they are hiding it so close to the election.

-PJ

19 posted on 10/13/2024 12:59:27 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

<>Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is leading Steve Garvey, a Republican, by between 17 and 33 points, depending on the poll.<>

So the Schiff virus will likely infect the Senate.

But this time, the new President will have a DOJ that I hope will be spring-loaded to prosecute congressional criminals.


20 posted on 10/13/2024 1:05:40 PM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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