• MonkRome@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Polls become more and more unreliable in the modern age. We have the least accurate polling in 40 years according to pew research. Pollsters report a 3% margin of error when it’s more like 6-7%. There is every reason to be skeptical of polling and not take them too seriously.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      4 months ago

      Even if Polling is less accurate than it was, and I haven’t seen any such claims by an authority on this matter least of all Pew Research, it is still a lot more accurate than your thoughts and feelings, mate.

      Take a look at THIS LINK. It’s FiveThirtyEight’s composite polling for the state with individual polls listed down below, one by Redfield & Wilton Strategies sponsored by The Telegraph with Trump +8 and another by InsiderAdvantage sponsored by WTVT (Tampa, Fla.) with Trump +10.

      • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        He said don’t rely on polls “too much”, not “not at all”. Those with reading comprehension would recognize what he meant was that there is real possibility that there is a smaller gap to bridge than you might think.

        You’re on some weak ego tangent that has nothing to do with anything, quoting an expired poll aggregate of Biden v Trump.

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          4 months ago

          Now here is what I am saying: Rely on the polls. Use data to back your beliefs. Reject emotional responses which fuel your personal biases, be objective and make the best choices based on verifiably true information. If you have a better source than a poll that is great, if not then the poll is better than you.

          • rekorse@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            If you think polling is that reliable be my guest. Noones trying to force you to be reasonable.

            • jj4211@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I think his point is not that polling is supremely reliable, just that it is more reliable than the article here, which is entirely based on one person’s gut feeling about what they randomly see (and want to see). Florida may not be a lost cause , but it’s also not something to get your hopes up too much over. The polling is at least a decent relative indicator that FL is a much more uphill battle than other states with a closer polling margin.

              • rekorse@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I understand the point but people are trying to change “more accurate than a gut feeling” to “the best predictive tools we have”, which betrays how accurate they are.

                I’m not sure anyone here would defend the methodology of these polls but they keep referencing them constantly.

                I understand we have nothing else, but maybe we just can’t predict the future as well as we think we can.

                • jj4211@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  “the best predictive tools we have”, which betrays how accurate they are.

                  I understand we have nothing else

                  Yes, we don’t have anything better, so they literally are the best predictive tools we have. It’s just that all our tools suck. If you see someone say “Florida is now a Harris state based on a couple of rallies I’ve seen” it’s more than fair to counter with “polls show Trump has a sizeable lead there”, particularly when you compare with polls run the same way in other states and use it as a rough relative indicator of Trump v. Harris bias between states, even if the absolute values are likely to mismatch the result.

                  • rekorse@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    How is that any different than two people arguing about who’s right about a math problem, where one is trying to cook their way to the answer, and the other is trying to crochet their way to the answer.

                    Neither of them are ever going to be right, neither side should be using those tools to solve that problem.

                    Maybe you can explain to me all of the benefits we gain from pre-vote polls?