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michaelflutist's avatar

https://politicalwire.com/2024/11/01/is-polling-broken/

Nate Cohn:

"When their results come in very blue, they don’t believe it. And frankly, I share that same feeling: If our final Pennsylvania poll comes in at Harris +7, why would I believe it? As a result, pollsters are more willing to take steps to produce more Republican-leaning results.”

It's good that he's candid about this, but what it means is that he is deliberately putting his finger on the scale in favor of the Republicans, and so are the others, or most of them. I hope they end up with a huge quantity of egg(s?) on their face.

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Nov 2
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Jonathan's avatar

Agreed and that's why I'd really like to see the new Selzer poll( right or wrong; she's going to put out her actual results with no nonsense; like Nate Silver's 'feelings')

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Henrik's avatar

I should note that this is how the campaign is modeling their turnout too, if I understand Plouffe and JOD correctly. Better to have the most conservative assumptions possible than another 2016/20

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Jonathan's avatar

That's exactly what Plouffe has been saying; taking all of worst case scenarios as the baseline

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michaelflutist's avatar

Yes, that's what I basically heard him say, too.

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Paleo's avatar

Heard or herd?

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ClimateHawk's avatar

I see what you did there!

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Ethan (KingofSpades)'s avatar

Yeah, better safe than sorry, but it seems to be causing herding?

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safik's avatar

A singular poll should not supersede the makeup of the state and its history. So if I saw a PA poll showing a +7 result I wouldn't believe it either. The asymmetry of it, where Cohn says they specifically wouldn't believe it if it was Harris +7 and nothing of Trump +7 is more interesting.

From a Harris campaign perspective if you ignore a +7 poll and continue to treat it as a 2 point race is almost all upside. The only downside to it would be if whatever advantage you have in that state is largely singular. If Kamala wins PA by 7 I don't think there's any way she loses MI or WI. But maybe that really doesn't extend to the Sun Belt and she ends up losing NV by a point and Jackie Rosen loses by 0.5. Then I think you'd see some people saying they should've trusted their numbers and reallocated resources. But that's very unlikely and would also mean the worst has been averted.

From a media perspective it is interesting but I think unsurprising. The polling being too Republican and then ending up being wrong is just going to result in some people laughing at you on social media. The polling being too Democratic might result in you being hauled in front of congress.

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michaelflutist's avatar

If Trump were to win, it could result in much worse than that.

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