Monday has come and gone and five more will arrive before the magical day, November 5, when America takes her collective IQ/morality test. On November 6 (unless there’s a delay like in 2020) we will either still be the land of the free and the home of the brave, or we will have embarked on the swift and certain fall of this republic. It really is that stark and that simple. Naturally, we seek to test the waters of the electorate and see where we stand. And every single week we get new polls. Yesterday we had a situation of two conflicting polls — so what to do? Which to believe? Robert Kuttner, at American Prospect, is a beacon in the darkness.
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I don’t know what, if anything, can be done to get a grip on polling in this country. It used to be a reliable metric. But that was in a day and age where we were not polarized to the extent that we are and where we used landlines and not predominantly cell phones. The pollsters usually don’t announce themselves. I have taken to answering unknown numbers in the hope of being polled. I did get lucky once and a pollster called me, about two months ago. I wish they would call every week.
The methodology isn’t working for the most part. There are now better methodologies available for political polling and we will explore that topic in a subsequent column here today. But for the most part, we are stuck with what we’ve got and what we’ve got is utterly confusing.
Even if Harris does lose Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina (which seems unduly pessimistic), she will still win the presidency by 270 to 268 electoral votes, if the blue wall holds and an effort in Nebraska to change that state’s system for counting electoral votes fails. Nebraska, like Maine, allocates its votes by congressional district. And the Second District, Omaha and suburbs, generally votes Democratic.
As you read yesterday, Nebraska is not going to change their law now. So we are out of the woods on that one. Harris is not looking bad in Nevada. I check on that constantly. And she’s looking better than ever in North Carolina, due to Mark Robinson. What about Georgia?
And in Georgia, the fight is still playing out to prevent three corrupt Trumpian election commissioners from gaming the rules to hold down turnout and make it easier to rig the count. Opposing them are Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Trump steal the election in 2020. The Times/Siena poll queried “likely voters,” but especially in Georgia we don’t know who likely voters are.
This fracas in Georgia with the hand counting of ballots is far from over. Yes, we are right on top of the election but there’s only so far Trump’s MAGA troops can go. Kemp and Raffensperger didn’t help Trump steal the election in 2020 and they won’t help him now. Both men have futures in politics, Trump has none. So look to Georgia to be, if not the center of the political universe in November, at least one of the major theaters of combat. Kuttner’s bottom line is, “let’s take all poll results with a ton of salt.”
That’s about it. Meanwhile, think positive thoughts. We have the 2008 energy going for us.
Ever since 2016, I’ve happily taken every poll with Mr Kuttner’s “ton of salt,” to the extent that I simply ignore them as being irrelevant to reality. Just about every poll back then said that Hillary would wipe the floor with Trump, how could she not? And ever since, I doubt that many (if any) pollsters have critiqued and corrected their methodology, despite its myriad flaws. I enjoy reading fiction and fantasy but not in the run-up to a vital election.
I do not read polls at all since they are a tiny little snapshot in a tiny speck of time. They mean nothing.
“The methodology isn’t working for the most part. There are now better methodologies available for political polling…” no sense between those two sentences. Although I look forward to reading about these new methodologies.
My thought: IF pollsters strictly used data/polling gathering methodologies, statistical/mathematical methodologies, we likely would not be in this pickle of not being able to trust any polls. Since data collecting/polling companies started selling their services to give pols, political interests and special interest groups what they want to see in a poll, polling companies have become extremely distrusted mechanisms for data gathering. Statistics has been manipulated into an art form rather than staying in its’ lane: a branch of mathematics. Of course you can’t blame the methodologies, only the person manipulating them so I guess the use of different methods of collecting this kind of data will probably get warped into who ever is shelling out the benjamins.
warped by. not warped into. sorry
It has become much easier to know what reality is with a very simple test
Did the poll/news item appear in the New York Times?
Then it will be false/lies/slanted to favor the interests of the billionaire class.
ratings that’s all. nothing else to report on since they sane wash everything anyway.