Polls are coducted over the telephone? I absolutely would not answer my phone for an unknown number. My 24 year old son would not answer the phone for a known number (unless it is his Mom). Do you know who would answer their phone for a random number? My 82 year old Trump lovin' Mom. THAT is why poll results are skewed.
I agree! However, my 88 year old Biden-loving mom, who screens all her calls, decided to answer a recent Quinnipiac Poll call because she was curious. She said it took about 20 minutes and she had the interviewer repeat some of the questions, because they were a bit confusing (and she’s really sharp). She said they asked about matchups between Biden and lots of others and she was all-in on Joe!
I have a land line, and the only calls I get are scams or the occasional poll (which always takes 20 minutes). I have felt like I am helping in some way by answering questions. There have been various polls over the years, but lately most seem to have a political agenda. I had one in the last few years that seemed to be from the pork industry as by the direction of the questions (I believe there were some regulatory things happening in California although I am not there). The political ones often seem to lean Republican based on the questions, as then they ask about my opinion of certain republican candidates. I feel that some of the questions are misleading. And sometimes I don't answer some of the questions honestly, and I assume others may do the same. Sometimes, I feel like I would have to do some research before honestly answering some questions.
When I've taken some polls (yes, I answer my landline!) I've found some of the questions have no proper answer. I realized later I should just decline to answer that question but I feel compelled to pick one of the available answers that comes closest to what I think. The way they design the polls can lead to a skewed result.
I used to design product surveys and whenever I participated in a study, I often told the interviewer that I couldn’t answer some questions because they were compound questions- meaning there were 2 different legitimate answers. The ‘public opinion’ surveys also asked ‘leading’ questions. They can just mark it as No answer if you don’t answer. Much worse to give inaccurate answer.
It is the same in my household. I also would not answer questions from an unknown source. It is too risky with all of the doxxing and swatting going on, so when I read about a poll, which I never take to heart, because as my mathematician husband, who views statistics as a means of manipulation says, anyone can manipulate a poll to say anything. So, without having the sampling criteria, and the polling items, I cannot credit any poll good or bad. No one in my family answers calls from random phone numbers unless we are expecting service people to come, or a delivery. Otherwise, we do not do this on our landline or cell phones. My almost 90 year old mom answers the phone for strange numbers even though she has been duped a couple of times by the Amazon scam. I have tried to get her to stop because of these scams, but she feels that someone whom she forgot might be trying to reach her. No amount of reasoning with her can stop her. That is because her memory being weak makes her resistant to reasoning. Which also means what she is saying is impacted by lack of memory. However, my mom hates Trump, and cannot vote in the US anyway, because she is not a US citizen. I am working on her to get citizenship because this election is so important.
dear lord, I won't even answer robocalls from my own on-line pharmacy. Caller ID is so easily spoofed. No WAY am I going to give out my birthdate to some random robot.
I've complained. When I call back on the actual number, customer service says they "can't reach" the folks doing the robocalls. REAL reassuring, that. So I've just said if they need to check info or ask my opinion, just email me with an extension and I'll call back on a number I know is correct. Otherwise, me, myself and the tomb are silent.
Too bad, because I LIKE my online pharmacy a lot and would give them multiple stars if they just asked the right way.
Exactly! As I have said before, when I responded to the NYT poll in 2023 with disgust that the media would create polls, because I am against the practice and I did not believe the results, instead of publishing my comments the author of the article wrote me back defending the polling data. I told him that without the polling items and knowledge of their methodology for getting responses, I was not accepting of his poll (the one where hardly any youth supported Biden, before Israel and Gaza). I am against this practice of media creating polls, because I see it as the media creating the news, not reporting it. Let independent organizations create polls, and then let the media tell us what sort of organization it is, and what their methodology was in reporting it. Then, let them have intelligent people from diverse backgrounds analyze the data. The media itself today has reporters that seem so insular in their experiences, they just seem naive, and too suburban White bred to me. I am pretty critical of contemporary American parenting, particularly that of rich folks. Scheduling children up the wazoo with activities designed to keep the low paid sitters and nannies from having too much influence over the children, at the same time trying to make them work all the time for the coveted ivy league college acceptance, is just a disaster for creating adults who have had diverse and self initiated experiences. How does such a child even explore meeting people from very different circumstances. So, the takes are narrow and naive. As I age, I find myself increasingly critical of the lack of depth of experience that is reflected in the positions taken by most of the journalists that are hired into the mainstream press.
Yes! You get it! You see and describe the big picture of what's going on. Polls are a part of
of a bigger problem of how we attend to this world-distractions that take us away from seeing for ourselves...thinking for ourselves. We like things packaged for us rather than unpackaging which requires thinking skills, time and inclination. The way we have structured things keeps us busy with fast takes, spins coming in volumes leaving little room to stop and think...outside of our specialized silos.
Corporate media needs eyeballs for profits...the saddest thing is what is not reported because it requires higher attending levels rather than emotional reactionary responses.
Without reading the article, I know the answer, YES!
Thank you Jay for this excellent summation. If I weren’t already a paying subscriber, I would be now after this article. I will post to my SubStack.
I have been screaming about the inherent bias of the current iteration of polling for over 3 years!
Every time I see a statement in a news article or a comment, I call it out. I have been called all sorts of names along the lines of “you are a effing idiot, everyone knows…..”
And I keep doing it.
I am generally not a gambler, but I would bet you dollars to donuts that at least one person reading this comment will remember having read my standard comment before.
Ever since The Great Polling Debacle of 2016, I have ignored results of polls. I encourage everyone to do the same. The methodology of polling is seriously flawed in this modern era.
There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and then there are polls.
The WI polling really confused me, as I thought Johnson would breeze past Barnes, but during the early post-election count it was obvious that Barnes had lots of support, and ultimately only just fell short of ousting the insurrection enabler Johnson.
For 2024, already early polling yields the usual "bad news for Democrats" spin by the MSM, with several incumbents up for re-election "in trouble", according to seers such as Nate Cohn. Frankly, I follow "Decision Desk" for the best unbiased psephological interpretations of voting trends...gave up on the NYT and 538.
I agree about the problems of a small sample size but I also have to believe that a small sample size in a telephone poll is also biased because fewer and fewer people have landlines that they actually answer and use. I do know some family and friends who have a landline but check caller ID before answering it. I'm 71 and I only have a cell phone and I don't think too many younger voters have landlines. If I get a political survey in the mail I toss it into the recycle bin because the group wants my money. A percentage is only number X over number Y and if you inflate or deflate X or Y you can easily provide a percentage that is mathematically correct but meaningless.
The problem with polling in 2024 is that it is constant, repetitive and done to push each and every agenda in politics. There are a lot of worries expressed about falling enthusiasm among Democrats, but I am sure that a lotof that is because we are just tired of being asked if we are still Democrats 6 times every day by different supposedly independent pollsters.
When I hear there’s falling enthusiasm among Democrats, I automatically believe it’s the lying Right saying that to demoralize us. How can anyone know there is falling enthusiasm among Democrats?
If 538 and RealClearPolitics now know the polls were so badly skewed in 2022, shouldn't they be monitoring the information they're receiving this year for bias, and weight each poll or inform the public about the possible bias when they report on the polls? That would make sense if they want to keep their readers....
Polls seem generally useless these days. I mean, how are they conducted now? Online polls would seemed skewed either because a particular site might lean one direction or the other leading to biased samples, and/or possibly be vulnerable to bots 'voting'. And as John Fugelsang said back in 2022, phone polls are utterly useless - who answers calls from unknown numbers nowadays? Old lonely white people, that's who. Not exactly a broad cross section of America.
My Congressional rep (R) sends out thrse horribly skewed polls that ask questions in the negative about Biden and Democratic policies. I respond multiple times to skew his responses.
Nice! I used to love when the repubs sent crap out with prepaid return envelopes. I used to fill the envelopes with untraceable junk and return it. Generates funds for the USPS and drains funds from the GQP.
Over the years and having been in both Dem and Republican congressional and state legislative districts, I’ve received numerous mailed surveys from both parties and additional surveys from partisan organizations and non-profits. I rarely respond to any because the questions are leading and many are poorly written. The worse are actually from my California Democrat legislators (and I’m a life long registered Democrat from age 18); they only ask leading questions on their pet project objectives. I’ve occasionally messed with the heads of republican polls with nonsensical answers just for the fun of it.
Polls are coducted over the telephone? I absolutely would not answer my phone for an unknown number. My 24 year old son would not answer the phone for a known number (unless it is his Mom). Do you know who would answer their phone for a random number? My 82 year old Trump lovin' Mom. THAT is why poll results are skewed.
I agree! However, my 88 year old Biden-loving mom, who screens all her calls, decided to answer a recent Quinnipiac Poll call because she was curious. She said it took about 20 minutes and she had the interviewer repeat some of the questions, because they were a bit confusing (and she’s really sharp). She said they asked about matchups between Biden and lots of others and she was all-in on Joe!
I will pray for your Mom's health!
I have a land line, and the only calls I get are scams or the occasional poll (which always takes 20 minutes). I have felt like I am helping in some way by answering questions. There have been various polls over the years, but lately most seem to have a political agenda. I had one in the last few years that seemed to be from the pork industry as by the direction of the questions (I believe there were some regulatory things happening in California although I am not there). The political ones often seem to lean Republican based on the questions, as then they ask about my opinion of certain republican candidates. I feel that some of the questions are misleading. And sometimes I don't answer some of the questions honestly, and I assume others may do the same. Sometimes, I feel like I would have to do some research before honestly answering some questions.
When I've taken some polls (yes, I answer my landline!) I've found some of the questions have no proper answer. I realized later I should just decline to answer that question but I feel compelled to pick one of the available answers that comes closest to what I think. The way they design the polls can lead to a skewed result.
I used to design product surveys and whenever I participated in a study, I often told the interviewer that I couldn’t answer some questions because they were compound questions- meaning there were 2 different legitimate answers. The ‘public opinion’ surveys also asked ‘leading’ questions. They can just mark it as No answer if you don’t answer. Much worse to give inaccurate answer.
Look up Prop 12 (anti-animal cruelty). It was appealed to the SC last spring and was (shockingly) upheld.
It is the same in my household. I also would not answer questions from an unknown source. It is too risky with all of the doxxing and swatting going on, so when I read about a poll, which I never take to heart, because as my mathematician husband, who views statistics as a means of manipulation says, anyone can manipulate a poll to say anything. So, without having the sampling criteria, and the polling items, I cannot credit any poll good or bad. No one in my family answers calls from random phone numbers unless we are expecting service people to come, or a delivery. Otherwise, we do not do this on our landline or cell phones. My almost 90 year old mom answers the phone for strange numbers even though she has been duped a couple of times by the Amazon scam. I have tried to get her to stop because of these scams, but she feels that someone whom she forgot might be trying to reach her. No amount of reasoning with her can stop her. That is because her memory being weak makes her resistant to reasoning. Which also means what she is saying is impacted by lack of memory. However, my mom hates Trump, and cannot vote in the US anyway, because she is not a US citizen. I am working on her to get citizenship because this election is so important.
dear lord, I won't even answer robocalls from my own on-line pharmacy. Caller ID is so easily spoofed. No WAY am I going to give out my birthdate to some random robot.
I've complained. When I call back on the actual number, customer service says they "can't reach" the folks doing the robocalls. REAL reassuring, that. So I've just said if they need to check info or ask my opinion, just email me with an extension and I'll call back on a number I know is correct. Otherwise, me, myself and the tomb are silent.
Too bad, because I LIKE my online pharmacy a lot and would give them multiple stars if they just asked the right way.
I have a landline. I answer my phone if it looks like a polling call.
I have been a liberal Democrat since age 12. I am 70.
I have NEVER voted GOP.
Just sayin' I hate being lumped into an amorphous ball of sameness based on my age and my landline. IT IS NOT ACCURATE.
Check out ROPER and see HOW MANY white dudes aged 45 to 64 voted for trump in 2016 and 2020. (Is 45 the NEW "OLD?")
I also resent my state being called a RED state. 46% of voters in my state did NOT VOTE for trump.
The question should be why are polls so valued? The more we turn to polls the less we make decisions based on their merits.
I agree. And my basic bio stats class taught me those margins of errors are pretty meaningless if you convert them to confidence bands.
And polls emphasize the American focus on winning over doing-voting for the right thing.
Exactly! As I have said before, when I responded to the NYT poll in 2023 with disgust that the media would create polls, because I am against the practice and I did not believe the results, instead of publishing my comments the author of the article wrote me back defending the polling data. I told him that without the polling items and knowledge of their methodology for getting responses, I was not accepting of his poll (the one where hardly any youth supported Biden, before Israel and Gaza). I am against this practice of media creating polls, because I see it as the media creating the news, not reporting it. Let independent organizations create polls, and then let the media tell us what sort of organization it is, and what their methodology was in reporting it. Then, let them have intelligent people from diverse backgrounds analyze the data. The media itself today has reporters that seem so insular in their experiences, they just seem naive, and too suburban White bred to me. I am pretty critical of contemporary American parenting, particularly that of rich folks. Scheduling children up the wazoo with activities designed to keep the low paid sitters and nannies from having too much influence over the children, at the same time trying to make them work all the time for the coveted ivy league college acceptance, is just a disaster for creating adults who have had diverse and self initiated experiences. How does such a child even explore meeting people from very different circumstances. So, the takes are narrow and naive. As I age, I find myself increasingly critical of the lack of depth of experience that is reflected in the positions taken by most of the journalists that are hired into the mainstream press.
Yes! You get it! You see and describe the big picture of what's going on. Polls are a part of
of a bigger problem of how we attend to this world-distractions that take us away from seeing for ourselves...thinking for ourselves. We like things packaged for us rather than unpackaging which requires thinking skills, time and inclination. The way we have structured things keeps us busy with fast takes, spins coming in volumes leaving little room to stop and think...outside of our specialized silos.
It give MSM something easy and emotional to report about as well.
Corporate media needs eyeballs for profits...the saddest thing is what is not reported because it requires higher attending levels rather than emotional reactionary responses.
Honestly, I think shoddy polls are a cheap substitute for journalism.
I’d like to see every polls questions included with poll results. When they are available almost everyone can see the “trick questions.”
After that NYTimes poll - I clicked on the tab at the bottom and broke it open -
I decided to not look at any
polls until June. I'm a Simon
Rosenberg Substacker and
like his formats, but skip his
poll results right now too. I'm
for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024.
“ Has Polling Become Weaponized?”
Without reading the article, I know the answer, YES!
Thank you Jay for this excellent summation. If I weren’t already a paying subscriber, I would be now after this article. I will post to my SubStack.
I have been screaming about the inherent bias of the current iteration of polling for over 3 years!
Every time I see a statement in a news article or a comment, I call it out. I have been called all sorts of names along the lines of “you are a effing idiot, everyone knows…..”
And I keep doing it.
I am generally not a gambler, but I would bet you dollars to donuts that at least one person reading this comment will remember having read my standard comment before.
Ever since The Great Polling Debacle of 2016, I have ignored results of polls. I encourage everyone to do the same. The methodology of polling is seriously flawed in this modern era.
There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and then there are polls.
With apologies to Samuel Clemens.
I would like to say one thing.................not one person I know has ever been polled.
Forget the POLLS it is an instrument of propaganda.
Ditto!
I’m incredibly disappointed in legacy media for reporting the “poll” data mostly uncritically, topped with alarmist headlines.
That's because they don't know how to interpret the data presented. We talk about illiteracy, but there's also a lot of innumeracy.
FiveThirtyEight in a very short time became a hot pile of mess.
Indeed.
The answer is yes so F the polls and F Republicans and their lying polls and morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt selves.
The WI polling really confused me, as I thought Johnson would breeze past Barnes, but during the early post-election count it was obvious that Barnes had lots of support, and ultimately only just fell short of ousting the insurrection enabler Johnson.
For 2024, already early polling yields the usual "bad news for Democrats" spin by the MSM, with several incumbents up for re-election "in trouble", according to seers such as Nate Cohn. Frankly, I follow "Decision Desk" for the best unbiased psephological interpretations of voting trends...gave up on the NYT and 538.
I agree about the problems of a small sample size but I also have to believe that a small sample size in a telephone poll is also biased because fewer and fewer people have landlines that they actually answer and use. I do know some family and friends who have a landline but check caller ID before answering it. I'm 71 and I only have a cell phone and I don't think too many younger voters have landlines. If I get a political survey in the mail I toss it into the recycle bin because the group wants my money. A percentage is only number X over number Y and if you inflate or deflate X or Y you can easily provide a percentage that is mathematically correct but meaningless.
The problem with polling in 2024 is that it is constant, repetitive and done to push each and every agenda in politics. There are a lot of worries expressed about falling enthusiasm among Democrats, but I am sure that a lotof that is because we are just tired of being asked if we are still Democrats 6 times every day by different supposedly independent pollsters.
When I hear there’s falling enthusiasm among Democrats, I automatically believe it’s the lying Right saying that to demoralize us. How can anyone know there is falling enthusiasm among Democrats?
If 538 and RealClearPolitics now know the polls were so badly skewed in 2022, shouldn't they be monitoring the information they're receiving this year for bias, and weight each poll or inform the public about the possible bias when they report on the polls? That would make sense if they want to keep their readers....
You would think.
Who answers the phone anymore? I don’t answer unless I know who’s calling.
Polls seem generally useless these days. I mean, how are they conducted now? Online polls would seemed skewed either because a particular site might lean one direction or the other leading to biased samples, and/or possibly be vulnerable to bots 'voting'. And as John Fugelsang said back in 2022, phone polls are utterly useless - who answers calls from unknown numbers nowadays? Old lonely white people, that's who. Not exactly a broad cross section of America.
Online polls are voluntary response. Voluntary response polls are useless.
My Congressional rep (R) sends out thrse horribly skewed polls that ask questions in the negative about Biden and Democratic policies. I respond multiple times to skew his responses.
Nice! I used to love when the repubs sent crap out with prepaid return envelopes. I used to fill the envelopes with untraceable junk and return it. Generates funds for the USPS and drains funds from the GQP.
They don’t do that enymore.
Over the years and having been in both Dem and Republican congressional and state legislative districts, I’ve received numerous mailed surveys from both parties and additional surveys from partisan organizations and non-profits. I rarely respond to any because the questions are leading and many are poorly written. The worse are actually from my California Democrat legislators (and I’m a life long registered Democrat from age 18); they only ask leading questions on their pet project objectives. I’ve occasionally messed with the heads of republican polls with nonsensical answers just for the fun of it.