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Less Than 1% of Americans Have Responded To Mid-Term Election Telephone Polls. So How Can Anyone Seriously Predict The Outcome?

HikerGuy83 said:
I don't think I can care any less then than I do now.
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Ahh! So then the expression you want to use, for future reference, is "I COULDN'T care less". Or "I could NOT care less".

The way you said it suggests there was less caring possible.
 
Jay59 said:
If you believe the Times, Democrats should be extremely overrepresented in polls. that has indeed been a problem, particularly in the Northeast. There are ways to balance the scales. If you look at the detail of any poll, you will see multiple breakdowns of age, sex, party, race, income, and other things. These can be used to weight the poll to get a more accurate picture.

One problem with polling is herd mentality. They do not like to stand out too much and staying close to their competition saves work. Only at crunch time do you typically see their best. The exceptions, Ann Selzer for example, are hallowed in the industry. Fortunately, this is crunch time. They will do their best to make their final pre-election posting as accurate as possible.
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There are also rumors that Republican pollster companies have been manipulating polls in states like New York, in order to get the DNC to waste more money in blue states.
 
Slyfox696 said:
Ahh! So then the expression you want to use, for future reference, is "I COULDN'T care less". Or "I could NOT care less".

The way you said it suggests there was less caring possible.
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You are quite the detail person.....

I appreciate your correction.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
This is according to a recent New York Times story.

Therefore, how can anyone claim with any confidence that one side or the other is going to win?

Fox News is already laying the groundwork that the election is going to be "stolen" from Republicans. They keep insisting that the Republicans will definitely win, which will undoubtedly lead to violence if they actually lose.


www.nytimes.com

Who in the World Is Still Answering Pollsters’ Phone Calls? (Published 2022)

Response rates suggest the “death of telephone polling” is getting closer.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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These days tons of people don't even answer their phone unless they recognize the number.

We can thank spam calls for that.
When you add in busy people, mistaken hangups, or people thinking it was a spam call it's entirely plausible that most people don't answer their phone for a poll.

I think pollsters need to look at alternatives to telephone polls, personally.

Or maybe do something where they advertise ahead of time what number they'll be calling from, so people can answer it if they want to participate. Probably most would block it I expect...
 
Integrityrespec said:
Shouldn't the pollsters always report who got polled and by that I mean who responded not just who they attempted to contact. So if you called 1,000 but only 500 picked up were they 467 democrats and 23 republicans and 10 independents? This could explain how the pollsters are getting this so wrong in our last few elections.
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That's where weighted groups are used. If they compare their respondents to other national stats, they raise or lower results to match the rest of the country. Ideally, they want a representative sample. If the weighting is good, the final numbers can be extrapolated to the rest of the country.

Even just 3000 respondents can represent the nation since more respondents simply show repetitive or continuing results.

Obviously it's often less than ideal. 🙂
 
Slyfox696 said:
You're not the first person to realize this.

No worries! Always happy to help (no snark intended)!
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Not sure when this version of the phrase worked its way into our lexicon, but here in my part of the midwest, I now hear people say "I could care less" almost all the time when they mean I couldn't care less. Seemingly just accepted to mean the exact opposite of what's actually being said.
 
HikerGuy83 said:
See you four days.

Good scientific polls (which was not the Kansas polls) show you going down.
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Says you. No one really knows, no matter what Fox News and other right wing media sources keeps shoving down your throat.

Please just don't do something dumb if you all lose on Tuesday.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
Says you. No one really knows, no matter what Fox News and other right wing media sources keeps shoving down your throat.
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538 isn't right wing.

Sorry to break it to you.....

Your wet dream isn't ending the way you want it to.
 
The AntiDonald said:
Just heard this on MSNBC. There are a lot of pollsters out there that are having a really hard time figuring this one out.

But there is no doubt that right wing media is overblowing the odds republicans have in order to set the stage for election result denial. This is going to be a nail biter and it won't be over in a day or two.
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I have not been polled through a call but I have been polled through a text.

It had several questions.

I answered all the questions in the poll.

Here's a screen shot of the text:

Screenshot 2022-11-04 at 9.00.02 PM.webp
 
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Schism said:
Whenever democrats are losing, they say they don't care about polls.

When democrats are winning, they say the polls proved they were right.
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Nah. Democrats lean on the side of turning out the vote. The democrats are a bigger more diverse group of people. Trickier to get them all voting in the “right” direction or voting at all. Republicans are more cohesive. The last thing the democrats want to do at this stage is let off that they’re crushing. That might disincentivize a chunk of voters.

“We were getting ready to win; frankly we did win.”—Donald Trump (prophetic, no?)
 
HikerGuy83 said:
538 isn't right wing.

Sorry to break it to you.....

Your wet dream isn't ending the way you want it to.
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I've looked at 538. They don't know, either.

They say there is a probability that Republicans will win, but they honestly don't know.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
I've looked at 538. They don't know, either.

They say there is a probability that Republicans will win, but they honestly don't know.
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They know the probability.

That is why we believe them and not your panicked last minute flailing.
 
Buckeyes85 said:
Not sure when this version of the phrase worked its way into our lexicon, but here in my part of the midwest, I now hear people say "I could care less" almost all the time when they mean I couldn't care less. Seemingly just accepted to mean the exact opposite of what's actually being said.
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Off topic but we have hundreds of idioms in English, and we don't notice them.

'I'm getting tired' would mean I have been given a 'tired', and I can keep it. Or maybe it means a car ran over me!

If someone tells you to 'shut up', try telling them to 'shut down'.

He missed the boat, she sat on the fence, he felt under the weather, all little phrases that are confusing as hell to people learning English 😊
 
HikerGuy83 said:
They know the probability.

That is why we believe them and not your panicked last minute flailing.
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Helpful hint -- look at early voter turnout totals.

I was confident that Biden was going to win in 2020 when I saw the early voter turnout totals, which were huge.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
Helpful hint -- look at early voter turnout totals.

I was confident that Biden was going to win in 2020 when I saw the early voter turnout totals, which were huge.
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I'll trust the statisticians.....thanks anyway.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
Helpful hint -- look at early voter turnout totals.

I was confident that Biden was going to win in 2020 when I saw the early voter turnout totals, which were huge.
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Enjoy the pre-election euphoria, you're going to be bitter for the next 2 years.
 
RIP U.S. Democracy said:
LOL...the make-believe statisticians. Go ahead.
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O.K.

What say, we make a wager.....

If the GOP does not win the house, I'll leave the board for three months.

If the GOP does win the house, then you leave for three months.

What say you ?
 
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