A new NYT/Siena poll has people freaking out again. But they shouldn't.

[AnrothElf]

TL;DR: Don't just "ignore the polls"... DEBUNK THEM.

Leave it to the New York Times to stir up Democratic anxiety right before the State of the Union address, with a poll showing Trump beating Biden by five points nationally. A number of my friends sent the poll to me. Some of them are now filled with such gloom and doom that I wanted to lay out my thoughts on it plainly here for a wider audience.

It seems no matter how often I beat the drum about the polls being unreliable, premature and wrong, it doesn’t allay people’s fears enough. Talk of “ditching Biden” then ensues, which of course is not going to happen. We should just stop any discussion of it right now if we know what’s good for us.

So what about this poll? Isn’t the NYT / Siena a reliable indicator? They wouldn’t publish something that is basically false information, right?

Polls aren’t “false.” They report what people actually told the pollsters. But they can be misleading, and they are often faulty. Importantly, we shouldn’t trust any polls to be predictive of the final result when there are still more than 200 days to go till the election and a whole lot of unknowns. But let me focus in particular on this poll and what some experts on polling and methodology are saying about it. I hope you come away with the same conclusion I did: that this is some data, yes, but it’s not very reliable or useful except to make big headlines.

Read the rest: https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/status-report-about-that-poll?r=1zr8b&triedRedirect=true

[lees1975]

1. "Useful to make big headlines" is the key.

I've noticed for decades, really, how the polls are sensational months before an election but there is a very predictable "tightening" the closer we get to election day and in the week prior to an election, lots of scrambling to remove prior commentary, sanitize the news cycle and make it look like they had this all along. Then, afterward, they post-date their best pieces and claim that they finished within their margin of error.

And I've also noticed, based on having many years of political watching to develop the perspective, that as the number of media outlets has grown, and the turn toward having a "niche" that is, by journalistic standards, a clear bias toward one party or perspective or candidate, the number of polls has also grown and there's an established bias that is reflected, even if its just a couple of points here and there, in their polling results. I'd bet if you gave a quiz to a hundred people who are active and engaged in politics, they would be able to nail, with 90% accuracy, which polls always lean Republican and which ones always lean Democratic and which few are actually reflective of a more accurate result when it comes to the way the election goes. And I'd be willing to wager that the money trail to the poll and its funding goes to wherever the bias has been detected.

When I first started teaching high school civics back in the 80's, most of my high school students could make an accurate electoral map with info from the three networks, the Washington Post and their polls. The last time I taught it, in 2020, some students referenced 20 different polls over ten weeks to come up with their picks, and they are not nearly as accurate as they used to be.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. It's a seriously flawed poll

About that poll:

Small sample size of 980
Undersample of Gen Z voters, just 16%
Republicans were 30%,( reweighted from actual sample of 28%), Dems 29%, Independents 34% - once again, Republicans oversampled, Dems significantly undersampled.

Actual national partisan affiliation, according to Ballotopedia:

As of October 2022, 48 million registered voters in these areas identified themselves as Democrats. At 38.78%, Democrats represented the single largest share of registered voters in the states and territories that allow voters to indicate partisan affiliation on their registration forms.
A total of 36.4 million registered voters identified themselves as Republicans, representing 29.42% of registered voters in these areas.
A total of 35.3 million registered voters identified themselves as independents or unaffiliated with any political party. This amounted to 28.55% of registered voters in these areas.
Approximately 4 million registered voters identified themselves as members of other political parties. This amounted to 3.25% of registered voters in these areas.

Party identification including leaners - Dem 43% GOP 49%

“Who did you vote for in 2020?” - Trump 34% Biden 44% Didn’t Vote - 18%
“Which 2024 primary did you/will you vote in?” - Dem 28% GOP 36% Unlikely to vote 28%

37% of respondents reported incomes of over $100k

Methodology
The New York Times/Siena College poll of 980 registered voters nationwide, including 823 who completed the full survey, was conducted in English and Spanish on cellular and landline telephones from Feb. 25 to 28, 2024. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters and plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for the likely electorate. Among those who completed the full survey, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points for registered voters and plus or minus 4.2 percentage points for the likely electorate.

That’s a pretty big MOE- IIRC, most other pollsters are using sample sizes of around 2,000 with a MOE of around 2.5-3.0% for likely voters.

Weighting used something called the “L2 model”, which isn’t described or disclosed clearly, and so, should be eyed with caution. Weighting methodology is often the least scientific element of all the elements in a poll, which some veteran pollsters refer to as a not-so-educated guess based on their “gut”, “hunches”, or simply, bias.

There was also a lot of incomprehensible gobbledegook about how many respondents from each state were used, but regionally, the South was over represented at 35% of the sample, with the Northeast only 20% (reweighted from actual sample of 22%), West at 23%, and Midwest at 22%.

Free link to cross tabs and methodology:

https://archive.ph/zLkgK

So, plenty of room for criticism, don’t you think?

[jimfields33]

3. I would imagine you'd have to bite your tongue everyday in the 80's. All but one year was red.

I feel for you having to teach civics during that time.

[Basic LA]

4. Peter Baker's NYT analysis of the poll

Seemed like a surprisingly fair assessment accompanying the poll's release on the Time's front page yesterday.
I forget why I had cooled toward the guy, but that was a solid piece of writing IMHO.

[brooklynite]

11. But if the Times is supporting Trump (according to DU orthodoxy), so why would they also print a fair analysis?

Of course, the bigger question is, why would anyone imagine that voters who don't like Trump (esp. the high education voters who read the Times) would be swayed by a poll that says he's leading?

[Basic LA]

12. That orthodoxy is troubling

But I guess understandable. Any site or publication other than an official Campaign house organ raises hackles in some quarters. But even the fulsome NYT stable of conservative columnists hate Trump.
The poll results align with all polls more or less as a snapshot of present opinion, and its release and above-the-fold placement--and accompanying analysis can be seen as a call to arms in the ponderous Times way.
(Also, wait till they read Maureen Dowd today. Oh boy.)

[JI7]

5. People need to stop letting polls control them

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Excellent analysis- I urge everyone to read the whole article

It goes into great detail (but easily digested) about the various sampling flaws in the poll, beginning with the assertion that Trump is tied with Biden among women, 46-46, when the average is Biden leads with women by 11 points.

[David__77]

7. "Running like you're behind" can be a good thing.

[AnrothElf]

13. Honestly? I entertain only two conspiracy theories...

One is that Marvel Studios has been secretly recording Chris Evans and Haley Atwell on set of almost every major MCU film since Avengers: Engame in order to later have footage for a blowout Secret Wars plot.

The other is that these apparently Trump-biased polls from historically somewhat left-leaning pollsters are actually INTENDED to keep us pissed and scared so we turn out in record numbers to end Trump once and forever until the end of time. Amen.

Democratic policy is by far the most popular in the US, and has been for about 2 decades. When more people vote, Democrats tend to win more elections.

Get people scared and riled up and VOTING, and Democrats will win more.

It has to seem important. It has to seem life or death, or too many Americans will simply not vote. Voter apathy is the Democratic Party's biggest enemy.

These lying shit polls are pretty effective at riling people up and scaring the fuck out of them.

[Norbert]

8. I heard with women was breaking even 46% for both Biden and trump.

I didn't look any further. After all that has happened the past three years, there is no way the orange malignancy is gaining more support from women.

[-misanthroptimist]

9. A few things:

1. National polls are useless.*
2. Polling accuracy, generally, has become less reliable over the years.
3. Polls this early are rarely indicative of the final result anyway.

* In 2016, Trump lost the "national vote" but still won the EC -as probably everyone here knows.

[shrike3]

10. Dean Phillips polling at 12 percent? Huh?