Have Pollsters Learned Nothing
since the Last Election?
American Thinker,
by
Brian C. Joondeph
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
8/21/2019 4:56:54 AM
While the moniker “fake news” is typically reserved for cable news and some of the more prominent newspapers in America, the term could also be applied to presidential polls. How many pollsters predicted Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election by a landslide up to and including the day of the actual election?The “paper of record,” the New York Times, told readers on election day, Nov. 8, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had an 85 percent chance of winning the election. Their prediction was updated on 10:20 PM ET, oblivious to the evening smiles on cable news shows that were curdling into frowns and outright hysteria.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Locarno 8/21/2019 5:10:52 AM (No. 157716)
As long as 'pollsters' continue to act like 'journalists' and push their wishful thinking narrative irregardless of facts, then no, they have learned nothing. Just go on oversampling donkeys, pushing registered polls, and ignoring facts and you'll once again wind up with egg on face come election day. They already have so much egg on their faces, we should start calling them 'omlette faces.'
37 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
DaddyO 8/21/2019 5:31:43 AM (No. 157725)
No, they haven't.
But please continue to tell democrats to stay home. Their candidates are so far ahead their votes aren't needed.
33 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Trigger2 8/21/2019 5:54:42 AM (No. 157738)
So long as stupid people are willing to pass out money to pollsters to get the pretend answer they desire, the answer is a resounding No.
20 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
judy 8/21/2019 6:33:45 AM (No. 157790)
The fake media controls the fake polls. It makes them feel relevant! Not One poll was correct in 2016!
27 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Paperpuncher 8/21/2019 7:26:13 AM (No. 157840)
The younger generations do not have land lines in their homes. They communicate via cell phone and are more likely to answer a call from a number they don't recognize. Myself and most people I know in my age group will not answer a call from a number they do not know. (Thanks to the 10 to 15 robo calls a day we get) If I don't know who it is I don't answer. Leave a message. If I want to talk to you I will call you back. The point is, the pollsters can not reach a large portion of the population and most of that group are conservative. Go away kid. You bother me.
44 people like this.
Polls are commissioned for a finite number of reasons:
1) To influence the weak-minded via the Appeal to Majority fallacy. Example: 'gay marriage' was polled until it inched over 50%. Then people were asked why they were opposed to equal rights.
2) To depress/subvert the opposition - as so many are attempting with Trump and this article explains.
3) To sell services. Big splashy polls are loss leaders. The pollsters want someone - anyone - to hire them to poll on a local campaign, to do advertising/market research, etc. This is why Gallup issues nonsense polls on a regular basis - they're merely keeping their brand front and center.
One recent NC poll captured just 500 persons - a mere 0.004816% of the population. It would make a cat laugh.
17 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 8/21/2019 7:48:06 AM (No. 157859)
Every media outlet is biased, and is out to manipulate the voting public. They are good at it. It pays not to spend too much time following the news. Especially when much of the news isn't really news.
13 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
bpl40 8/21/2019 7:58:37 AM (No. 157865)
Forget predictions. Exit polls of voting that had already been done on afternoon of 11/08/16 were showing Hillary winning ALL fifty states. That is why you couldn't wipe the wide grins off the faces of the Fake News operatives. That was behind the NYT prediction of 85% Hillary win. Something is radically wrong with the way these people operate. Something they have not yet found out.
13 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Daisymay 8/21/2019 8:03:00 AM (No. 157871)
Trump was right when he complained about the "FOX" Poll. It was (and is) a Joke. Showing ALL the Democrat candidates beating Trump. Only someone who does not follow politics would believe such a poll. I know I don't pay much attention to them, and if I do look at one, it's IBD (who got the poll right last time when Trump won). Rassmjussen is usually pretty fair as well, but the rest of them just say what the Pollster wants them to say!
13 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
HotRod 8/21/2019 8:06:41 AM (No. 157875)
Push polls only work when there is no other source of factual information, such as in a socialist/communist country. Of course, some people only read headlines and these are the LoFo voters the left wants to reach. Fortunately, there are other sources of information that is much easier to access than they used to be.
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/21/2019 8:13:57 AM (No. 157884)
Polls may have been used to gauge the honest responses of a cross section of the population in the distant past but today they are nothing but offensive weapons designed to sway the thinking of those who have not been polled. Since they are anonymous and unprovable I would not doubt that many of those organization just take a check from suckers and fabricate the results 100%. Trust nobody who has an agenda because honesty plays no part in politics. You can't tell me that the constant declarations of the wild popularity of the Obamas in the face of nothing but failure was anything but fiction.
13 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
udanja99 8/21/2019 8:41:42 AM (No. 157921)
#8, I have never been polled when leaving a voting site, nor actually polled at all ever. But if I were, I would lie to the pollster and say that I voted for the demonrat, just to skew their polls. I sometimes wonder if a lot of Trump voters did exactly that on Election Day 2016.
12 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 8/21/2019 8:50:17 AM (No. 157930)
It's over for Trump.
A recent poll of 3 million avowed communists has Boinie with 114% and Trump with -18% (margin of error ± 0%).
How can Trump possibly overcome a lead like that?
3 people like this.
Here in TN we had an open senate seat in 2018. About a week before the election some university put out a poll that showed the race was a statistical tie.
The republican candidate ended up winning by 10 points. Some poll.
So not only was the poll deeply flawed, but it was just entirely predictable that all of the local "news" shows mentioned that one poll almost exclusively during the last week of the campaign.
None of these institutions are to be trusted anymore.
9 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 8/21/2019 9:58:09 AM (No. 158030)
Having worked with a hospital survey company, I know that even written polls can be skewed. If you are a pollster and you accidentally call me and I accidentally answer and if I deign to speak with you, I make a promise: I will LIE to you to shut you up. As far as I know voting is still done by secret ballot and my choice is NOYB.
9 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Gnana1 8/21/2019 10:14:18 AM (No. 158059)
As stated, FNC is in the tank per the Murdock boys! Brett Baer is snake and should be called out by POTUS for scolding from BB.
Fox has always poll trouble. I did a research on them long ago, before Trump and found they outsourced polls.
6 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Franz 8/21/2019 10:30:35 AM (No. 158087)
The way for tyranny is for good people to do nothing!
Remember, the Progressives/Democrats tried to rig the last Presidential election, and nearly succeeded! Unless the good people, who Progressives/Democrats call "deplorables," come out in force to vote, the Progressives/Democrats could succeed this time.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
DynomiteThings 8/21/2019 11:14:54 AM (No. 158164)
I agree wholeheartedly with #12. I too would attempt to skew the poll numbers...IF I were ever polled, that is.
2 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
janjan 8/21/2019 12:43:30 PM (No. 158275)
The Fox News reporting on this poll is irresponsible and deliberately misleading. They should have said that a) we outsourced this to another company and b) democrats were over-sampled by 8%. People can draw their own conclusions. Instead they report it as a big blockbuster. If they are going to compete with CNN and MSNBC for who can be most untrustworthy they will find themselves with the same ratings as the other two.
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
BeatleJeff 8/21/2019 12:53:38 PM (No. 158288)
As long as they insist on using redundant data collection systems, they're going to continued to be embarrassed by their incorrect results.
1 person likes this.
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