Can we finally put the "All the polls are bullshit" thing to bed?

[Codeine]

Things have gone largely as predicted by the models. The cell phone effect hasn't seemed to impact anything. Can we just stop with the self-delusional head in the sand act in the future?

[readmoreoften]

1. It's a lot easier than admitting that your strategy, tactics, and platform are bunk.

:shrug:

[Codeine]

2. A few weeks ago I disagreed with someone who told us

that Sestak would win -- "Bank it!", all because he aired a commercial featuring dogshit. Anybody who argued the poll numbers were against him and his chances were slim at best was treated with incredible nastiness and childish derision.

None of those posters will ever acknowledge their error, much less their nasty attitude.

[BlueState]

11. Clearly by the end results his chances were not "slim at best"

The election was quite close.

[tigereye]

13. although I think it was closer than Nate Silver predicted...

I knew it would be tough, right from the beginning, with so many negative ads running early.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ter]

3. No, they will point to Sharron Angle being ahead in the polls and keep it up

Yep, just one come-from-behind race will keep them going. And in two years, expect the buffoons to start posting "Dewey Defeats Truman" pics again, as if polling from 1948 (which was not often and door to door!) was the same as today!

[Codeine]

4. And we'll be told again that Nate Silver knows nothing and his model is flawed

even though it performed with amazing accuracy once again. *sigh*

[Ter]

5. To be honest, I'm shocked about Nevada

She was up by 3 to 4 percent for months in every poll, then loses by 5%. If this had happened to one of my candidates, I'd suspect foul play.

[BzaDem]

9. Same exact thing happened in '08. Most polls had Obama up in low single digits -- he won by 12.

Nevada is a hard state to poll for some reason. PPP think's is because Hispanics in Nevada are hard to reach.

The rest of the polling was quite good by and large.

[deaniac21]

39. Foul play.....in Nevada....couldn't happen.

[tigereye]

14. no, he is highly accurate typically

[zipplewrath]

15. Which one?

Nate was predicting alot of things all October long. Even he was hedging the heck out of his predictions. Go back to August, dig up polls from then.

[Codeine]

21. That was the current polling.

He wasn't making final predictions, he was giving a snapshot of the moment. I'm not sure why that's so confusing to some.

[zipplewrath]

26. But you were talking about how "accurate" he was

Which prediction do you find so "accurate"? The one the night before or the one the week before? Alot of people will be more accurate the night before.

[Codeine]

27. He only makes one prediction.

everything before that is polling analysis and trendmarking.

[zipplewrath]

30. Wow, okay

I'll only make one prediction on the next World Series. In the top of the ninth with 2 outs left.

[Statistical]

37. Well a more realistic analogy would be to predict the world series BEFORE it starts.

Actually to be like Nate it would be like predicting the outcome of each game in march madness and the amount the winning team wins by before the first game begins.

[zipplewrath]

38. Voting started in most places 4 weeks ago

There was publicly available data during the period about who was showing up to the polls. By Nov. 2 there was ALOT of data available on actual voting patterns.

[Statistical]

43. No there wasn't. Early voting results aren't released.

It would be like TIVO the World Series and then making a prediction without seeing it.

Even a two weeks ago Nate model showed Republicans gaining control of House and Dems barely holding the Senate.

[zipplewrath]

44. Early voting patterns are

We know who was voting, just not who they were voting for. The big question in this campaign was who was going to show up at all. It was what had the poll model makers all concerned. One big question was supposedly the "cell phone effect".

[Upton]

16. We'll also be told again that Nate is lying

because he now works for the NYT. How crazy can you get? Nate is the best friend we have..

[Codeine]

46. He is indeed. We have two choices;

we can acknowledge and recognize that his model has serious statistical and predictive validity and use that data to our advantage in issue identification and choosing where our race money goes,

OR we can childishly rail against it and keep babbling about cellphones and the "whore media."

I can tell you which of those two choices I think wins elections. . .

[apocalypsehow]

6. Kick, Rec. n/t.

[BootinUp]

7. There was a lot of uncertainty in the outcome

according to Nate and other pollsters. I think you are mischaracterizing things a bit. Many big races were closer than the polls were predicting.

[DrDan]

8. Thank You

self-delusion . . . . exactly

rather than act accordingly, so many just refused to accept what the potential voters were saying

[BootinUp]

10. Gallup Generic Ballot poll was bad, here is Nates brief note on polls

Taking the results that have been reported so far on a Congressional district by Congressional district basis, and extrapolating out results for those that haven’t finished counting, we project that Republicans will receive about 42.7 million total votes for the U.S. House, and Democrats 37.2 million, out of about 82.5 million cast.
That would translate into 51.8 percent of the vote for Republicans, and 45.1 percent for Democrats, or a difference of about 6.7 points.

A few interesting notes:
– Turnout was fairly good, but will not be exceptionally high. Total votes cast in the House in 2006, for example, numbered about 81 million.

– The average of generic ballot polls did a very good job of predicting the Republican margin in the House popular vote. We had the average at 6.9 points heading into the election. The much-discussed Gallup poll — which showed Republicans winning the generic ballot by 15 points, was quite poor.

– Republicans, however, did somewhat better than you might expect based on having won the national house ballot by 6-7 points. There are various formulas that attempt to translate the generic ballot or the House popular vote into a seat count without worrying about how things work out at a district-by-district level. Those formulas would generally translate a 6-7 point popular vote win into something like a 50 or 55 seat gain for Republicans. Instead, it looks like Republicans will net something on the order of 65 seats. The Republican vote was evidently concentrated in a way that was quite efficient.

[Upton]

12. Thank you..

I was actually shocked at how many here were pushing the "all the polls are bullshit" and the Dewey beats Truman BS. Sounded like a bunch of backwoods yahoos. Hopefully they learned a lesson last night...but somehow I doubt it.

[grantcart]

17. The use of LV modelling was a mess

They had Angle winning with only 32% of registered voters, a laughable assertion and this was the highest profile race in the nation. In the end the polling was not only wrong but not very close.

Just because the winners came out along the lines they predicted doesn't mean that the polling was run well.

The experts decried the very poor use of LV screening IN SOME CASES.

[de novo]

18. I hope so. But, don't count on it.

The next Presidential approval poll will have the usuals denying the veracity of the methodology.

[Saboburns]

19. Ha

Last night at 8pm Eastern I made the comment that the Republicans were indeed going to win control of the House and that we would be lucky to keep the Senate.

You should have read the things said about me.

So yes, there are some otherwise fine folks who are delusional when it comes to electioneering polling.

[bemildred]

20. No, polls are still bullshit.

Or if you prefer: Polls are an unreliable indicator of how elections will really come out. This unreliability as accurate indicators of election outcomes increases dramatically as the polling date recedes from the election date, and the value that polls could offer as estimates of election outcomes and/or public opinion is further degraded by the vast cloud of spin and babble that surrounds their "interpretation".

There are plenty of examples. The assertion is not that polls are always wrong, or even that they are usually wrong, it is that they are unreliable, and this is easily observable by anyone that cares to see.

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." -- P. Simon "The Boxer"

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

22. No. It will be back in 2012, word for word.

It's the same stuff every election, and seemingly with a learning curve of slope=infinity.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

33. Unless it looks good for us

Then the polls rock!

[Codeine]

47. LOL! Too fucking true!

Hell, even when we just THINK they look good for us; look how many threads were celebrating "Hey, we're only eight points down in Arkabamastan now!" Jebus.

[spanone]

23. the california polls were utter horseshit

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

34. So that's it?

You were one of the biggest drum beaters that Silver was full of it, Matthews was full of it, the MSM was all in it up to their neck.......and your one answer to the fact that the bottom line turned out to be true......that the GOP would win the House with a 50-60 seat flip and we would barely keep the Senate is.......that one set of polls were full of shit?

To quote Karl Spackler......you got that goin' for ya.

[Uzybone]

24. It wont happen

people will continue to believe only the polls hat agree with them. The polls that say that Americans are more conservative than they are liberal have been ignored here since I joined.

It is always a feat when a left of center politician becomes President in this country.

[cynatnite]

28. No, I don't think so. Reid wasn't supposed to win last night and he did. n/t

[arbusto_baboso]

29. But how much does the constant drumbeat of polls actually DRIVE election results?

That is an important question that needs to be answered.

One way or another, the corporate media was complicit in yesterday's election results.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

35. Well, that may be true

But you read the exit polling data and you find out......people really are that fucking stupid. Which was my thesis all along.

[arbusto_baboso]

42. But were they MADE that fucking stupid by our corporate whore media?

I think a compelling argument can be made that they were.

All the messaging and proper governance and "ground game" in the world won't make a damn bit of difference if the media lies and distorts without any large sources to dispute them.

[moondust]

31. Contrived polls can be used to create "conventional wisdom."

Not just one or two polls but over time many polls to create an ongoing narrative that if repeated again and again and reinforced with other elements--many people will come to accept.

I think it's possible. It's called brainwashing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/myriam-miedzian/capitalism-uber-alles-how_1_b_775495.html

[treestar]

32. We can't let them lead us to just give up though

The cell phone effect and other fictions help. We have to still try to GOTV and campaign as hard as possible. We can't let the polls control us.

In 2008 when they were good, it didn't seem to help anyway. There was still plenty of "concern."

[GSLevel9]

36. +1000 nt

[Evasporque]

40. yes....nt

[End Of The Road]

41. And may we put it the Jon Stewart threads into bed with it? nt

[NNN0LHI]

45. Every poll I seen had my Dem governor 6-10 points down. He won

I never seen one poll that had Harry Reid in the lead over Angle.

He won too.

Don

[Dawson Leery]

48. No. The final polls showed Dan Malloy behind by a few points.

In the end, GOTV in the cities and on the coast gave him a win for Governor.

[Codeine]

49. Nate's model still showed Malloy as the likely winner

before the election. He was giving Foley only a 30% chance of election.