• Asafum@feddit.nl
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    1 month ago

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/08/28/key-things-to-know-about-us-election-polling-in-2024/

    There’s a lot to unpack in there but the following is the most concerning if you consider Kamalas current polling:

    Even if the trend shown there was reversed Kamala is so damn close in current polls that any similar inaccuracy has her lose every swing state. I just don’t see her winning, but I’m a seriously depressed pessimist so… Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.

    I just had to make a quick edit to laugh at the url that calls this a “short read” lol

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      You’re getting downvotes because people disagree with you, but you posted a source and you explained yourself in good faith. That gets an upvote, imo.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Much appreciated!

        I’m just a joe schmoe factory worker stressed out about it and trying to make sense of it all. I’m more than happy to have someone who understands it all better than this dumb factory schmuck tell me why I’m reading it wrong lol

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Kamala has bad history. People may deceive themselves they don’t care, but they still do, even those who eat with shit anybody criticizing her, just subconsciously. That subconscious influence on their behavior may affect those undecided around them. Trump is demented, but Kamala having the “lawful-neutral” flavor with some “lawful-evil” undertones makes the difference less notable for Republican voters. Some of the Democrat voters are less likely to go and vote due to having suppressed doubts.

        It doesn’t matter that “people against the establishment” is not the main theme of this election. It’s still an unresolved question. That it’s suppressed just shows the degree of media independence from political corporations (it not existing, that is). Trump is not “people” in this, but he manages to appear neutral between “people” and “the establishment”, while Kamala doesn’t, and her attempts are worse than lack thereof.

        “We are going to throw you some bones and punish some corpos” is not a satisfactory position.

        The cost of Trump winning for this world is too much, so I really hope he doesn’t. But were that not so, one could say that worse is better, Trump winning would mean a political crisis and some reforms in the political system as its consequence, when they clean up the rubble.

    • Furball@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      There are a lot of reasons to think that it might go the other way this year. In 2016, we had a combination of overconfidence, lack of real enthusiasm, and a general sense of not giving a shit that allowed democrats, who outnumbered Trump supporters, to throw the election. In 2020, polling was completely fucked up by Covid. Democrats had higher margins in pre-election polling but less on Election Day mostly due to the fact that democrats were more cautious about the pandemic, and those who forgot to sign up for mail in voting decided to stay home for safety, and the on the ground get out the vote measures didn’t happen at all on the blue side. This year neither are true, and we saw in polls in 2022 underestimate democrats. Pollsters may have overcorrected for the quiet Trump voters while not accounting for the turnout caused by the scrapping of roe. If you want an example of over correction to account for republicans in polls, look at the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. I feel like polls are underestimating democrats this time around.

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Don’t be depressed. You’re reading a statistical analysis of something that was already totally unreliable to begin with. The researchers could have conducted a better poll, that would fix the weak points that they perceive to exist in existing data, but they didn’t. So now we have even more assumptions stacked on top of other assumptions, and it’s really hard to think there’s any kind of reliability to that data.

    • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Polling errors are not predictable beforehand. If they were, we wouldn’t have polling errors. In 2022 for instance there was polling error in favor of democrats not against (or at least too much emphasis on polls with errors in Republican favor).

      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/polling-election-2022-red-wave.html

      We can’t know the electorate beforehand, so poll weighting and deciding who is a likely voter is always going to involve some guesswork. So the opposite of what you say is true as well, if there is a small polling error that overstates Trump’s support it would have Kamala sweeping every swing state.

      But the polls show a close election, all we can do is do our best to do things that help her win. Like voting early to make sure our vote gets in no matter what, encouraging people we know to register and vote, volunteering, canvassing, donating, etc.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Polls are not so much a prediction of the future as they are a snapshot in time and indicative of a candidate’s current momentum.

      But you’re right. It’s deeply shocking that this race is even close. If the DNC ever tried to run a candidate as bad as Trump, I’d just stay fucking home or vote 3rd party as a throwaway vote. I hope some Republicans with any shred of dignity or a functioning moral compass do the same on election day. We need real patriots to come together across ideological gaps and reject fascism full stop.

      • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 month ago

        Right, and that’s why some of these Republicans coming out for Harris is considered good, but all some of us see is a rightward shift so now they want to stay home.

        The non fascist side of Lemmy is so fractured and fickle that you can’t talk to the dog owners without upsetting the cat owners, and by talking to either of those, the vegans are pissed.

        And I don’t know how to even approach fixing it for this election. RCV would help on the future though.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        You’d better beIieve that if Republicans were a bastion of sanity and Democrats nominated someone batshit, that I’d vote Republican (or green, idk)