Posted on 10/07/2016 10:20:29 AM PDT by ProudFossil
Will somebody please explain to me how this can be? Trump draws tens of thousands to an event, Clinton draws a couple of hundred. The polls show Clinton ahead of Trump by 5 to 15 points. My wife and I argue about this all the time watching the news. I would think that Trump would be 20 points ahead, she says no. Her reason is people that go to the events do not answer the polls.
Thank you.
Monty Python has poisoned generations...
I lie to pollsters............and I suspect many others do as well..........
In a “normal” election cycle I would agree with your wife. Not this time. Hillary is so unlikeable (see Joe Bidens quote today) that her campaign is having a hard time finding paid attendees - and Mr. Trump is a lovable blue-collar billionaire rock star.
The key to this election (and polls) is turnout. Who has the most enthusiastic supporters? Who is stale as yesterday’s newspaper?
Trump/Pence 2016!
SHUT YOUR FESTERING GOB, YOU TIT! YOUR TYPE MAKES ME PUKE! YOU VACUOUS TOFFEE-NOSED MALODOROUS PERVERT!!!
Oh wait, that’s abuse.
Most of the polls oversample Democrats and undersample both Republicans and Independents. Trump runs consistently about 20 points ahead with the Independents. Either they are using fake polls to drive a narrative or they are expecting the largest ever voter fraud effort in this country. In 2012 we saw 10%. But I think their efforts will be spent trying to fill in the big hole of democrats that do not come out to vote, vote for Trump or vote 3rd party. The first one is the wild card. Massive numbers of democrats will not come out to vote, but the DNC machine may vote in their stead.
It’s sort of pathetic though, for the Hillary crowd. To be willing to support a candidate who does what Hillary does.
It means not just supporting a candidate who lies, cheats, steals and kills. It means supporting lying itself, for its own sake. Supporting cheating, stealing and killing.
This is one reason I encourage Hillary supporters to pay better attention to what they’re doing.
What poll shows Hitlery 15 points ahead?
Because Hillary’s supporters don’t have time to attend rallies, they’re all at work. /s
Personally I don’t think the rallies mean much, in terms of final outcome. I do think they are a nice way to get media coverage instead of buying ad time.
A better indicator, in my opinion, would be absentee/mail-in ballots, compared to previous presidential elections.
The polls are magic sauced.. every pollster wants to get it right, no doubt. But what we don’t know is if the numbers from 2012 will be applicable in this election in terms of party percentages etc.
One polling outfit that the LA times is using, is doing a rolling poll... where they track the same group of 3000 people over time. They were very accurate in 2012, and have shown Trump ahead.
So, where does this leave us? Turn out will be key, if the dems can control the GOTV and get everyone who voted for Obama to vote for Hillary... then she wins.
We have the enthusiasm.. and they have a machine. I still believe Trump will win this.
I agree with your wife. Trump supporters are the ones who suffer attacks from “tolerant” liberals, so they don’t answer polls.
Statistically, Trump does better on online polls than telephone polls, indicating that Trump supporters feel less likely to get negative blowback online.
I agree with your wife. Trump supporters are the ones who suffer attacks from “tolerant” liberals, so they don’t answer polls.
Statistically, Trump does better on online polls than telephone polls, indicating that Trump supporters feel less likely to get negative blowback online.
I regretfully agree.
Going to see a circus is different from wanting to live in one.
The Poll “results” you see are manipulated, just like the Global Warming data are manipulated. All this is done in order to make it a better guess at reality, and is accepted practice, but I think the “manipulation factors” may be incorrect.
For example the raw data of the Poll is adjusted to some demographic model of party affiliation, gender, age, and other factors. This is done to make the sample conform to that AGED model. The model is usually based on what was seen in previous election and “adjusted” for known demographic changes since then.
I believe all this “adjustments” creates a sample that doesn’t reflect reality! Trump is a phenomena that motivates people differently than Romney or even McCain and the derived demographic models are all grossly wrong. The same is true for Hillary, i.e. her “likability”.
Most of the propaganda (ads) we see are to force the electors into the demographic models used. That is why you see ads focused at certain vulnerable areas.
The bottom line is that the polls and the models will become “real” again on election day. Until then it is somebodies “best guess” that can be influenced by errors in judgement and gross bias!
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I don’t let the polls influence my selection(s), and are therefore of no value to me. If I were running a campaign then they may be of some value, but to the rest of us they are just “mental masturbation”!
Here ya go....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3477773/posts
Easy if your sample includes 50 people from the Trump rally and 100 people from Canky's rally.
Here’s a specific example of polling bias you can use with lady Fossil:
http://www.cnn.com/profiles/jennifer-agiesta
“Jennifer Agiesta is Director of Polling and Election Analytics at CNN. Named to the position in January 2015, Agiesta produces all the network’s polling and leads its Election Night decision team, while guiding CNN’s reporting on the use of polls. She works out of CNN’s Washington DC bureau.
“Prior to joining CNN, Agiesta served as director of polling at The Associated Press. There, she ran a two-person polling unit, conducting domestic and international survey research for the news cooperative and leading its election night exit poll coverage. She has also covered polling at The Washington Post, launching the site’s polling blog Behind the Numbers, and helped build the National Election Pool exit poll operation at Edison Research. Prior to her media work, Agiesta worked on messaging research with DC firms Belden, Russonello and Stewart and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.
“Agiesta holds a bachelors degree from Washington and Lee University, and is a native of Long Island.”
An Associated Pimps and Washington Compost alum, Jennifer is an ambitious young lefty who cut her teeth on exit polls and “messaging research’.
She “guides CNN’s reporting on the use of the polls”.
Anyone who doesn’t think critters like Jennifer don’t have an agenda must also think Fox is fair and balanced and the debates are held on a level playing field.
With rare exceptions, the MSM is in the tank for Uniparty and their little RINO spear-bearers, period.
I know a female who works in Human Resources and has to deal with male Muslim students. She said she can feel the hate and disgust radiate off them having to deal with a female.
But she’s a hard corp lib and will vote straight D.
Secondly rallies measure the mood of the most enthusiastic and likely to vote and get involved. They do not represent the majority of people who will actually vote. Note that Bernie had bigger rallies than Hillary in the Democratic primary, but more people voted for Hillary. This does NOT mean that rallies are not a good indicator, they are. Its just that rallies don't tell the whole story.
Thirdly, polls are probably the best indicator we have, but they are subject to issues. Some get confused by the the "margin of error" and think that is the amount a poll is likely to be off. This is not so. An additional error of unknown direction and intensity is built into each poll. It turns out that finding a sample of typical voters is very hard, and one can never be sure when one has succeeded. The pollsters over the years have developed techniques for reaching out to people and then applying filters and corrections to as close as they can to the fabled sample of typical voters, but this year is atypical, so the polls are probably further off than normal. In addition, historically when one side of an issue has tried to use public shaming of another side, as happened with Brexit recently, the polls tend to be skewed an additional amount toward the side that is doing the shaming campaign on the other. The LA times poll uses the same group in their sample, which means they are less likely to be subject to this last skew likely...they are also the poll where Trump does best (+2 at present).
It comes down to who goes out and votes. The Trump rally crowd certainly will. And people that are most likely to vote usually go for the Republican. Clueless easily manipulated people that are pushed and bribed to vote as election day approaches usually help the Democrats. In this year with the enthusiasm gap of Trump over Clintion, I suspect this last effect will be larger.
In addition there is the "monster" vote hypothesis. That is, there are many who have tuned out of politics for so long that pollsters miss them but are getting involved for this election because Trump is so refreshingly outside the PC crap that drove them from politics. If this hypothesis holds up in any significant way, Trump could win very handily.
I am cautiously optimistic about the Monster vote and Shaming hypothesis helping Trump, and I think there is good suggestive evidence that they are true.
So pointing out the obvious about Trump is bashing, is it?
According to the site descriptive; FR welcomes an exchange of ideas and differing opinions.
Apparently you don’t, which is your call.
As for Trump, I intend to vote for him, whatever his warts. My observation derived from his poor performance which was as obvious as 2+2=4; a cold reality his staunchest supporters publicly affirmed.
The swing block in this election is neither D’s nor R’s; its the non-affiliated independents who basically detest politics and politicians.
If you think they were impressed w/a grown man scowling for 90 minutes; I suggest you think again.
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