2y ago

I Don't Believe This Weekend's Scary Poll Numbers

www.esquire.com I Don't Believe This Weekend's Scary Poll Numbers

That poll putting Trump ahead of Biden in all the major battleground states sure looks terrifying, but there's never been an election more clouded by the unknown than this one.

A week after Halloween and the scary monsters are still abroad in the land.

Scary polls!

Scary plans!

Boogedy, boogedy!

It was a great weekend for intellectual doomscrolling, to say nothing of galloping paranoia. First, The New York Times comes out with a poll that shows the president is trailing Fulton County (Ga.) Inmate No. PO1135809 in all the major battleground states.

101 comments

I’m seeing a lot of what looks like famous last words in this thread. I just don’t know where you people get this confidence in the American people from.
- I just don’t know where you people get this confidence in the American people from.
  Same. 2016 and covid were just a little taste of how low we can go. I don't doubt that it can get worse.
  
  And it likely will, as more states ignore popular vote, and force women to either risk their lives, with sweeping bans
- This, 100%. Americans were the people dumb enough to elect Trump. They haven't changed that much in 8 years. All bets are off.
  
  People also forget that he barely lost in 2020. Frightening.
  
  He lost the popular vote, twice, by millions.
  Don't blame all Americans.
- Kind of hard for them to be last words when the election is still a year off
  
  This. People seem to think the voting public has a memory. As ever, these early analyses are meaningless.

Polls just create talking points for media to run around with. You could easily find (or discard) data to create any narrative you wanted. Remember when Hillary was the runaway favorite? Remember when Jeb Bush was the front runner?
Just go out and vote. End of the day no matter what the early polls say. Go Vote. Make your voice heard.
- Remember when Bobby Boucher showed up at halftime and the Mud Dogs won the Bourbon Bowl?
  
  Now that's a high quality comment.

the fact that he's been indicted up and down the eastern seaboard has figured less prominently in the campaign than the current president's age.
smh
- There's a certain contingent that will fervently support him no matter what happens. To these people the trials are all a conspiracy and just that much more reason they should give everything in the trailer to support their savior's rise to the throne.
  
  And these people are so passionate about it they probably go out of their way to vote in said polls. While most anyone else is not even answering the polls, giving this a bias.

Go vote. Help other people vote. Make sure people are registered to vote, locally and in other states via online call-banks.
Nothing else matters. Secure the vote and protect the vote.
- And regularly check your voting eligibility, especially as the voter registration date draws closer. Republicans are not above purging rolls at the 11th hour.

A lot can happen in a year.
- In American politics, a year is an eternity.
  Still, it's pretty unbelievable if Trump is actually running ahead at any point after everything that has happened with Jan 6, Roe, the criminal cases, getting involved with porn stars, etc. Really makes me lose faith in the US.
  
  Tbf, regarding the last point I think you mean, "sexually assaulting a porn star." There's no shame being involved with an adult entertainer if all parties involved are consenting, but there definitely is when you're sexually assaulting them (or anyone).
  
  You still had faith in the US?
- yup. stupid is highly contagious. it could end up being a lot worse.
  
  Or they could be so stupid, they don't vote. All that talk of stolen elections eroded a lot of their voters' trust in voting.

I think we, as a society, have got to the point where people simply don't care about the facts any more. It's all about feelings now. I think we're really at a point where facts no longer matter.
Take a look at everything that Biden has accomplished, even in this political climate of hate. What is his reward? The voters telling him "We don't care. You're too old.". None of his accomplishments matter. All they care about is that he's north of 80 and therefore shouldn't be in the White House. And they refuse to accept the fact that a vote for anyone other than Biden, or just staying home, is a de-facto vote for someone exponentially worse.
How many Palestinians, and Muslims in general, are allowing their judgement to be clouded by the Israel/Gaza situation to the point where they're actively saying "Down with Biden, consequences be damned"? Some of them are openly willing to accept a Trump presidency simply because it's not Biden.
The Department of Justice is basically terrified of going after Trump because of the fear of partisan politics. Not the interests of justice. Partisan politics and the court of public opinion. And these people don't even have to worry about being voted out of office. They have deferred to Trump out of fear of the backlash, and have even charged Hunter Biden with crimes based on flimsy evidence just to say that they were "non-partisan". The facts have not dictated how Merrick Garland has approached anything. It's all been about the appearance of impartiality and catering to the court of public opinion.
Trump's poll numbers continue to go up with every passing indictment and every courtroom appearance. And this is after he openly and repeatedly states his intent to dismantle government as we know it and install an authoritarian state. People are hearing about this on the daily, remembering what his first term was like, and saying "Yes, I want more of that!". Not because the facts are on his side. In fact, quite the opposite: He's outright telling people what the want to hear, and the actual facts don't matter. And it's working.
This is where we are at as a society. It's facts vs. feelings, and feelings may very well win. It's very difficult to argue from a position of facts when a not-insignificant part of the voting base is saying "We know about that. We just don't care.". Getting people to change their mind on something when their opinions are based on the facts is pretty easy. Getting people to change their mind when they don't care about the facts and are just going with their feelings? Not so much.....
Look at it this way. Trump could come out tomorrow and say that you (let's pretend you're Biden) have monkeys flying out of your ass that are terrorizing Washington, DC. We all know that that's stupid and irrational (and therefore, I expect Trump to say it tomorrow). Here's the issue with it, though. You could just ignore it because it's stupid and nonsensical. But if 51% of the people who you need to vote for you are saying that monkeys flying out of your ass is a significant problem, then you have no other choice but to address the nonexistent monkeys flying out of your ass if you want to actually win the election. Sure, you could continue to say that they don't exist because duh, but if the voters are really that concerned, you'll be saying that from your campaign headquarters while watching Trump give his victory speech.
Right now, Trump is saying that an entire zoo is coming out of Biden's ass. And people are believing it.
- How many Palestinians, and Muslims in general, are allowing their judgement to be clouded by the Israel/Gaza situation to the point where they’re actively saying “Down with Biden, consequences be damned”? Some of them are openly willing to accept a Trump presidency simply because it’s not Biden.
  I think the thing that really gets me about this sentiment is "Do you really think Donald Trump would've killed fewer Palestinians?" Killing brown people is a Republican past-time at this point. I understand being angry to the point of self-destruction if you think hurting yourself might help someone else, but this isn't even that. It's literally self-destructive and would make the very thing they're mad about worse. For my sanity I have to believe this is like some tiny twitter echo chamber that the media is blowing up for clicks.
  
  For my sanity I have to believe this is like some tiny twitter echo chamber that the media is blowing up for clicks.
  Unfortunately, it is not. Check my post history, and you'll find plenty of people who have expressed that exact sentiment. And this is Lemmy, which has, what, a fraction of a percent of the traffic that Reddit gets? It's worse there. And look at the polling for Biden among the Muslim/Arab community. It's virtually nonexistent. I've tried arguing with them using the exact same logic you did: Do you not realize that Trump would be exponentially worse? Their response? "We don't care. Anyone but Biden." It has got to be the purest textbook example of voting against your own best interests that I have ever seen.
- Right, this is all just more "your brain on cynicism."
  Modernism made us zealots. Postmodernism made us skeptics. Metamodernism will bring us back around to (localized) idealism, because holy shit there are way too many people in this world who lack the cognitive tools to face down that kind of nihilism.
- You come off as smug and dismissive of people's real concerns. Whether you care to admit it or not, you have to appeal to more people to win the election. You are so concerned that people won't vote for Biden, but you aren't concerned enough to want Biden to figure out what appeals to those people and present it to them.
  
  but you aren’t concerned enough to want Biden to figure out what appeals to those people and present it to them.
  And exactly what else is Biden supposed to present? I mean, I could post the usual list of Biden's accomplishments during his term if you'd like, but the general concensus from his voters is largely summed up by saying "We don't care about any of that. You're too old.". What is Biden supposed to do about that?
  Who else could possibly come up the pike? Sanders, round 3? He's 82. Warren? She's 74.
  If you don't want to vote for Biden, that's your choice. But remember that if you don't (or if you vote third party), you'll not only end up with someone who's just as old anyway, but you'll end up with someone who's exponentially worse in every possible way. There's no other options here. Yeah it sucks, but that's the situation we're in. If you think you're going to be sending a message, understand that the only message you'll be saying is "Welcome, President Trump!".
  And then let's see if Trump gives a damn about what appeals to you.
  
  Most of the people who support Trump don't even have real concerns that would lead them to vote for him. They have imaginary concerns that are so asinine that anyone with two functioning neurons can see right through them.

The polls didn't predict the 2016 win by Trump. They didn't predict the 2018 blue wave accurately. They didn't predict highest voter turnout in 100 years in 2020. They failed to predict a red wave that never materialized in 2022. BUT, I've got a good feeling about polling in 2024!
- "When looked at in historical context, what stands out isn’t that polling in 2016 was unusually poor, but that polling of the 2004, 2008 and 2012 presidential races was uncannily good — in a way that may have given people false expectations about how accurate polling has been all along.
  The other factor is that the error was more consequential in 2016 than it was in past years, since Trump narrowly won a lot of states where Clinton was narrowly ahead in the polls."
  https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/
- I wish my job allowed the level of reliability that Political Experts, 'Economists' and Meteorologists have.
  There is a chance between 0 and 100 that it could rain between 0 and 100 inches tomorrow. Also it will be between 50 and 80 degrees, or maybe not. I'm getting paid either way.
  
  Meteorology is really hard, but comparing it to politics and economics is false equivalence. Meteorology is governed by well proven mathematical models, and we can use them to make predictions. The problem is that the earth is really big, so we just don't have computers powerful enough to simulate it finely enough. Add to that it's a chaotic system and it becomes difficult to predict accurately very far into the future. Weather predictions have actually improved dramatically the last few decades, and I expect they will continue to do so along with advances in computing. Economics and politics may as well be random guessing, but is often worse than random guessing, because we have no reliable proven model for human behavior.

Polling errors happen. Even a 95% accurate poll is bound to be wrong 1 in 20 times. This poll is such a massive outlier that the prudent thing to do is wait for more polling.
That said, I don’t doubt that Americans feel grumpy right now and they’re blaming the incumbent. I do cautiously doubt this degree of grumpiness amongst these demographic groups.
- Agreed. A lot of people are grumpy about how he's handling the Israeli/Hamas War. A lot of people were also grumpy about how he handled Afghanistan. Only one of these two things is still in the public zeitgeist, however...
  It's a full year out from the actual election, and I don't expect either of these two things will be generally remembered at the polls next year.
  
  I seriously doubt the pull out of Afghanistan and the support of Israel is causing voters to prefer Trump in battleground states. Especially Afghanistan, which literally no one is talking about anymore. Maybe Israel policy has an effect, but I suspect pro-Palestinian sentiment is sadly pretty low outside of the Lemmy bubble.
  People are pessimistic about inflation, the economy, gas prices, affordability and all the bummer news in general. They blame the president. “Feelings” about the economy are one of the most reliable predictors of presidential elections.

He won the first time in no small part to folks that considered both sides the same and wanted to see it all burn. Lets hope they learned their lesson.

Fascism doesn’t follow the rules, and neither do the leaders or mobs that push them to power.

Don't make the mistake of believing the reasons people give for supporting Trump over Biden are their actual reasons. Biden's age, in particular, is approximately nobody's reason for opposing him; it's an excuse they give, or maybe a reason they think will persuade others. You won't persuade anyone by debunking an argument they never cared about in the first place.

How were people reached to poll them? Is this a phone poll? How many people under 65 do you know that answer the phone to unknown numbers, and also are willing to answer loaded questions for 10 minutes?
Of the people that do answer the phone and answer, what candidate do you imagine they'd vote for?
- Yep, without methodology, numbers are just lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- I got called and picked up and then promptly hung up, I'm voting for biden
  
  I like to answer like 2 questions taking a long time and answering " don't know," and then decide I don't want to do the poll after all.

Look, we are all still traumatized from 2016. And this shit is still way too fucking close.
Ten people at the party took a vote to see what to eat. Six people wrote "pizza" and 4 people wrote "the dog." This is US politics.
- Shit, after 2016 I just stopped paying attention to polls all together. I veiwed them as flawed even before 2016. After? Shit man I might not even be living in a democracy tomorrow, a pollsters opinion on who might win an election a year from now is interesting but post 2016 it's something I refuse to loose sleep over.

The rapist Donald J. Trump indeed raped E. Jean Carroll but the sex with Stormy Daniels was consensual.

I'd sooner believe he'd get 22 percent of the votes from pixies, elves, and the Tuatha de Denaan.
This author is a mad fool! The fey embrace chaos, they would surely surely love a 2nd Trump administration.
- Nah. They'd vote for RFK Jr.

I'm concerned about the poll, but not freaking out like some seem to. The fact of the matter is that we're still a year out, and there are still a lot of unknowns. I think Trump's numbers will erode as the public sees more of him (because he's be relatively quiet since 2021), and they will be reminded why they don't like him. That's not even taking the trials into account, which I think will further erode his support.
Where I'm concerned is not that these people who leave Trump aren't going to Biden; they're either not going to vote or go for a third party. While it gets the job done, it leaves less margin for error because there will probably be less Democratic turnout.
- Trump doesn't get the over saturation that the rest of politicians seem to get. I don't know why that doesn't apply to him. The more he is in the news, the better he polls.
  Wait for the attack ads. The Dems better take the gloves off and keep showing that trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.
  Attack ads work, they make prospective voters stay home on election day. The Dems need to use them aggressively this time.
- I think Trump’s numbers will erode as the public sees more of him
  How much more could he show? Everyone knows who he is.
  
  Everyone knows who he is, but he's been normalized and relatively quiet for a few years. As there gets to be more coverage, I think some of the Biden 2020->Trump 2024 or Nothing 2020->Trump 2024 voters will just not vote out of disgust because they're reminded what he's like. This is more of a vibes thing. They haven't felt Trumpy vibes, so they don't remember what he's like (at a visceral rather than intellectual level). I think a lot of people saying they'll vote for Trump now have some rose-colored glasses about his behavior.

I'm 62 and been ignoring calls from unknown callers for years.
But I'm getting bombarded by emails from both parties.
It would be one cold frosty day in hell before I voted RepubliKKKlan.
The demo emails are annoying -- people from other states begging for money, telling me shit I've known for years.
Staaaap!
- Oddly enough if you live in a Red State - the only way you might actually have change is voting in the Republican Primary.
  Because the Democratic party has all but given up in a lot of states. Looking at you Florida.

Why are polls even being talked about right now? Is it because Trump wanted us to?
- Because a reputable pollster did a year-to-go poll.

The fucker needs to be in jail. Line the outside of it with national guardsmen. The federal and state government has an obligation to both see the punishments through as well as protect the ex-potus. These are no conflicting viewpoints, but rather what must happen to knock some sense into this country.

538 sold out completely to ABc? wtf?? where have i been?
- It's been a couple of years now. Nate Silver now spends as much time at poker tournaments as he does working on 538
  
  Nope Nate no longer works at 538. He left (with his model!) in protest against massive budget cuts and he’s planning his next project.

Maybe we’ll go full Idiocracy this time.
- That was 2016. Catch up.

Polls are absolute bullshit. They’ve been proven time and again, why do people still let this shit scare them?

The polls are incongruous with the Democrat performance today. It's confusing. There must be a polling error or other problem
- Some places did not even have anything to vote on yesterday.
  Which means we didn't get polled either.
  How are they accounting for that?
  
  It's moreso the signs. Yeah, everyone didn't vote, but the places that did are providing a very informative picture. Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights by +14%. Virginia Democrats retook the legislature, which flouts Youngkin's argument that he knows how to solve abortion for Republicans. And Beshear won reelection in Kentucky.
  Unless traditionally blue areas have had similar surprises in favor of right wing causes, this suggests the national mood is very favorable to Democrats, which makes Biden's approval a big ?

I think this is why Trump could win. "I don't believe the polls".
Democrats need to wake the fuck up - Biden is not a good candidate and time is running out to select someone else. Don't ignore the polls because you don't like what they say - that is utter stupidity.
Democrats are going to let Trump back in by their own stupid machinations pretending that everyone thinks an 81 year old president is a good idea.
This is like Hilary Clinton all over again - it was "her turn" to run so big hitters sat out the primaries. She was a bad candidate - she won her own vote well but in the US system you have to win the electoral college and she didn't do it.
Please Democrats - wake up. Not Biden.
- This is nothing like Clinton. Biden already won and any other candidate would need insanely good numbers to overcome the power of incumbency. Obama had an approval rating of 38% (lower than Biden now) a year before the 2012 election and still easily won the election (332-206).
  Whatever your opinion of Biden, the Democrats would be very dumb to run another candidate.
- You are unironically recalling 2016 as an argument that polls are legit?! Lmao
  
  The polls said the race was much closer than people online or pundits would have had you believe. I know, because anytime I mentioned it online I'd get downvoted and when I mentioned it in real life people would get angry.
- Trump is 78. Basically 81. Worthless argument.

101 comments