Polls are surveys. They answer the question “what do people say they’re going to do?”
Extrapolating results strictly from polling comes with a pretty large caveat: it assumes people are going to do what they say they’re going to do.
Another large caveat is that there are issues with representation, as the group of people who will actually answer their phone is a pretty serious demographic skew.
Oddsmakers use polling results as a COMPONENT of their determination, but they’re free to aggregate against whatever else they see as relevant, things like history. Or to weigh which states polling is most effective. Or how which day of the week affects voter turnout on a per district level. Or how projected road closures could affect transit and therefore turnout rates.
Anyways, I think the entire point of my initial comment was lost:
If you’re excited about the polling, awesome… BUT DON’T GET COMPLACENT AND STILL GO VOTE. Why? Because the people who actually get paid to project outcomes think it’ll be a Hillary re-run, and if you don’t want that, you can NOT get complacent. You can’t let your friends get complacent. Be the reason the oddsmakers lose money in November.
I think we’re on the same page about what matters. I just don’t really put any stock in any prediction after what happened in 2016.
And yes I have heard the explanations and how actually the polls weren’t as wrong as they seemed at first glance. I just see zero reason to put any stock in them. I’m voting either way and I’ll encourage others to.
I’d love it if everyone at least was skeptical of polls because that’s a stance you can’t go wrong with.
I think the availability of polling is a major reason why people don’t bother to vote. If they’re reasonably sure their person will win, they’re less likely to bother. Or, if it looks like it’s going to be a blowout and they don’t think one vote will matter, same thing.
Voting day should be a federal holiday, there should be a tax incentive to vote like in Australia, and polling reporting should be delayed by 1 month.
I agree with all of this completely! Maybe someday we can catch up to other countries…
