Can We Trust Midterm Polling Data?

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Polling underestimated Trump's support in both 2016 and 2020, and questions have arisen over whether they're a reliable metric. So with the midterms coming up, we discuss the factors that influence the polls and whether we can trust them this time round.
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1 - www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...
2 - www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...
3 - www.dataforprogress.org/gener...
4 - www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
5 - apnorc.org/projects/bipartisa...
6 - www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/Lea...

[@ChildofWar2]

As a polish person, I am confused as to why you wouldn't trust us. Also drinking game: drink or take a shot every time he says the word "pole/poles/polling"

[@evvt7326]

lmao

[@JAKE-ng8yr]

@A B yeah the nazis and soviets and once... wonder why...

[@ChildofWar2]

@@ryleynadhir4685 woosh

[@ChildofWar2]

@@ryleynadhir4685 r/woosh

[@evvt7326]

@@ryleynadhir4685 r/woooooosh

[@yt.personal.identification]

Polls are performed on "expected voters". After Roe overturning, there will be many many "unexpected voters" not in the polls.

[@MAC_ABC]

Absolutely key point. Same thing happened with Trump; he drew in voters who usually never vote. So pollsters missed that. This time it’ll be the other way around.

[@txbre8758]

Same. Never registered to vote in texas. Now am.

[@poeethics9331]

@@txbre8758 same here in PA.

[@thepatriarchy819]

Yes! People love the right to kill their children!

[@Daniboi971]

@@txbre8758 Why haven't you registered until now? Just curious

[@Bigdog5400]

I think that one thing most Americans can agree however is that we're tired of the binary one party vs. the other.

[@youtubestuff683]

We need more parties and more people who will vote for parties other then their own

[@crazyrobots6565]

Until the US moves largely to a ranked ballot voting system, the only thing 3rd parties do is spoil elections for the mainstream party that most aligns with their views. The only thing the Libertarian party does is spoil elections for Republicans. The only thing the Green party does is spoil elections for the Democratic party. With FPTP, 3rd parties are unfortunately simply counterproductive.

[@thedirty530]

Oh how id love to see them both ripped down! Im closer to one but still ran by individuals out of touch with the people!

[@Fr00stee]

I'm tired of states continously making pointless illogical decisions

[@reptiloidtill]

This won't happen

[@nickmacarius3012]

The United States has very inaccurate polling. Not only because as was mentioned some pollsters have a political agenda to get the results they want. But there is also another factor. I use to live in Iowa, and pollsters always "predict" that our elections are competitive, but in reality it's a very Republican state. I remember in 2014 it was predicted that race for governor was neck-&-neck, but Terry Brandstad (R) won with over 60%. Now in Iowa we are first in the nation during Presidential elections, which results in presidential campaigns being active in the state of Iowa for nearly a year & a half. Needless to say that all the campaigning, the mail advertisements, door-to-door activists, and the pollsters calling becomes very annoying. Most of us become apathetic about it after a few months, so when pollsters call we just ignore them - that goes especially for the small town/rural areas, which are mostly Republican.

[@jimwally6520]

I think one issue is that people confuse % support for % probability of winning. 538 has Iowa's gov race at 99% probability that republicans will win, with a 58% support currently.

[@davidford3115]

@@jimwally6520 538 is worthless. Nate Silver has never admitted the blatant errors in his methodology which has made his predictions since 2014 completely worthless.

[@dionbaillargeon4899]

Polls in the US are actually pretty good. National polls were off by just 1.5 points on average in 2016, which is very good. They nailed the generic ballot in 2018. As for Iowa, all polls in 2014 pointed at a comfortable Brandstad win, and some of them even nailed his margin of victory. Ann Selzer's poll for the Des Moines Register also nailed the results of the Senate race. I think you're probably being misled by the media hype and misreading of polls, rather than by the polls themselves.

[@jimwally6520]

@@davidford3115 has he fixed it or did he just say "oops, don't listen to me anymore?" Or are you maybe misrepresenting that story a bit because what you just said doesn't make any sense. I think what you mean is that in 2016 polls were a bit off, and his "a bit better than a coin toss" odds for Clinton was the wrong call, and Silver has written extensively about how to correct for those errors going forward.

[@davidford3115]

@@jimwally6520 And yet Nate Silver's predictions have still been some of the worst performances since that election. You are trying to move the goal posts after the fact to claim victories for what we in meteorology call "nowcasting". As in, only counting the predictions the night before the results come in are NOT predictions, they are simply after the fact quarterbacking.

[@docholiday8029]

Polls are no longer accurate in a close race.. Ignore them. Very informative video

[@TheFinalChapters]

They were never accurate in a close race. In fact, historically, they were far *less* accurate.

[@blaarfengaar]

2016 polls were actually pretty accurate, the only real exceptions were in like 2 or 3 states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania iirc, but the national level polls were well within the margin of error

[@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022]

Give a round of applause for the Electoral College.

[@josjos2203]

The other fun part is that they were technically right has Trump lost the popular vote

[@newstartyt3700]

and keep in mind on the day of the election polls (the total average) showed Hillary only ahead by +3.3% in the popular vote by the time of the election, with the results only having her ahead +2.1% which is actually a +1.2% margin of error, but that 1.2% actually costed Hillary electorally, 2016 seems to be so wrong because of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

[@blaarfengaar]

@@newstartyt3700 exactly. 538 gave Trump a roughly 1/3rd chance to win, and that is not an insignificant number at all. The polls showed that Clinton was more likely to win, but unlikely things still happen all the time every day. Really 2016 just showed us how mathematically illiterate most people are and how bad they are at conceptualizing statistics and probability.

[@rainetv4748]

@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 I think that we should create a majority rule society where the minorities are not given a equal voice which is what this would cause I think we need electoral college perform such as dividing the winner take all systems in States into district electoral divisions where if you are a state that has 55 electors you can divide it into 55 districts and whoever wins your district that is the electoral vote that will go to the Senate

[@DrustZapat]

Another question (and in my opinion a better one) is which polls historically are most often correct. Of course bias is an important factor, especially non-response bias, but if I learned anything from Superforecasters by Philip Tetlock and Hate, Inc. by Matt Taibbi it's this: we put way too much faith in people who get a lot of air time that are often wrong in their predictions. So who predicts the best?

[@davidford3115]

Rasmussen asked a very telling question in 2016 which helped to make his the most accurate. The question was "Who do you think your neighbor is voting for?" The results of that question were the closest to the actual results, to within a 2% margin of error.

[@alainarchambault2331]

@@davidford3115 Except the Rasmussen poll has been right-leaning for some time. I prefer an aggregate poll, pulling all under one umbrella and averaging them out. You'll get a bigger cross-section that way. This is why I prefer projects.fivethirtyeight. Which BTW, includes Rasmussen. There's also a young lad with some really decent analytical skills who run the "Lets talk Elections" KZbin channel.

[@davidford3115]

@@alainarchambault2331 The problem with aggregate polls is "garbage in, garbage out". You don't really get a cross section, what you get is an amalgamation of flaws and biases bringing down the reliability of the whole.

[@alainarchambault2331]

@@davidford3115 So, you're saying Rassmussen has garbage flowing in too? I've been tracking with projects since 2015. I've found them to be highly accurate. More accurate than the individual polls because they take in a cross-section. They also grade each poll on their biases. They are aware of the "garbage." They tracked Trump's popularity very well. Down when he held Federal employee's paychecks hostage for his wall, and up during Covid, but never exceeding 50%. Which is why I know Trump was full of it. Take a look at it this way. A poll, perhaps with a slight slant, would poll 1,500 people in the southern US for right-wing purposes. Another poll in California that slants slightly left. Would you rather get the correct temperature of everyone in an average aggregate? Rural/urban, north/south? I've tracked those differences. It's red rural, and blue urban. Best to get them all if you're going to be honest.

[@davidford3115]

@@alainarchambault2331 Whataboutism is not an argument, it is a deflection. I point out that Rassmussen compensated for a number of biases by asking in 2016 "Who do you think your NEIGHBOR will vote for?". No other polling agency considered asking that. And the results of that specific question matched the actual results closer than any other polling question.

[@silver3981]

Small quibble here. You said "New York's 19th state." Ok, the subsections of the states (in terms of election regions) are call "districts". Not to be confused with counties, which are subsections of a state in terms of governance.

[@Rofl890]

I don't know anyone who has ever been polled even once (despite me knowing many people who have been registered voters for decades), I'm not implying a conspiracy: I'm sure the pollsters are "trying" to reach as "random" sample as possible, but I'm not so sure they are doing a good job.

[@itsalongday]

That might be because for example Rasmussen polls 1500 expected voters. The US had 168 mio registered voters (rv) in 2020, which means that less than a tenth of a percent of a percent of rvs were polled. I.e. the chances of being polled (by Rasmussen, but the chances for others are probably not much better) are basically zero. Even if you know many people, it's still very possible that none of them were ever polled - or they just didn't tell you, for any number of reasons

[@nicholase2868]

Their sample numbers are so damn low that it's not surprising they have been wildly wrong recently.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@nicholase2868 bruh you think they don’t know how many people they need to poll to get a good sample? The theory is basic stats 101. There’s a wiki article on sample size determination with all of the equations you need to work out if your population is large enough for your error tolerance or not.

[@EvilSandwich]

I drew the short straw and I've been polled constantly over many years. They're pretty tedious and not all polls are created equal. I've been asked nice neutral questions like: "On this scale, how favorable are you about [this guy]?" "Out of this list of current issues, which do you consider the most important?" But sometimes you get really annoyingly loaded questions like: "Would you still vote for this person, even after he's been accused of eating babies?" Or only allowed to give simple answers to a question about a nuanced topic that requires complex answers like: "Do you feel good about the direction the country is taking?" Like how the fuck do I answer that? The direction in what sense? What if im happy with the economy but I hate the laws getting passed? Or what if I'm happy with how low crime rates are, but hate the rise in mass shootings? Narrow it down!

[@djp1234]

I've been voting for 20 years. Never received any poll questions. They must be polling old farts only with landlines.

[@socratic-programmer]

Because it's been repeatedly found that said people with landlines provide the most reliable polls. They are useful for pollsters.

[@innosam123]

@@socratic-programmer Yeah. But that’s not exactly a *representative sample* . That’s part of the problem with polls. They have major biases, and clearly fail to account for all those biases to actually fit election results (including accounting for the Electoral College, as well as response bias). They’re still bad, even after 2016, especially in the swing states people actually care about. We’re seeing the same mistakes in the same places as in 2018 and 2016, implying they STILL haven’t learned their lesson.

[@EverettBurger]

You are correct. Plus, you probably live in a state that isn't a battle ground. I grew up in New Hampshire. Therefore, we were flooded with calls growing up. Plus, my parents were registered with separate parties. So, we got twice the amount of calls on our land line. It would get to the point where my parents would lie for who they intended to vote for. They ended up saying they would vote for the candidate with the furthest change of winning. If they said they would vote for a more recognized candidate, they would then have follow up questions for the next few minutes.

[@djp1234]

@@EverettBurger it's so incredibly stupid that we have "battleground states." We should switch to a democracy instead. 1 person = 1 vote.

[@innosam123]

@@djp1234 Because the US is supposed to be a federal system, not a unitary system. A union of states, not a nation-state (which the US is not by any means). The electoral college makes more sense in a system where the states have lots of autonomy outside foreign policy. The EU works similarly under the European Commission, for instance.

[@JasonTaylor-po5xc]

As we found out in 2016, polls are a tricky thing. Good honest people have no problems lying to those conducting a poll if they think they will be judged for their response. Not everyone who is polled will bother to vote, especially in mid-terms. Mid-terms are really about who is most upset since most folks won't bother - especially if they live in a "safe" state or district.

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

Polling in general won’t give conclusive images in tight races.

[@reillygrant2228]

The videos on the US have come so far from the first few you guys produced. Very proud

[@frazzleboi2821]

Well said 👏

[@eliahabib5111]

1:20 the question is the easy part of the equation only if you want to get a bias result. The formulation of the question, the order of the answers, etc. all affect the result. Just asking who you will vote for or who will you vote for if the election was tomorrow change the results (slightly) as studies have demonstrated. That is why many software for surveying have a feature that allow the random rotation of the answers list, like online survey, prompter for phone submitted questionnaire. It's even present on some printed questionnaire as an instruction to read the answers in changing order. This is why in at least one juristiction (not in the USA) it's illigal to publish a survey results without including the methodology AND the exact question formulation, with usually a waiver for some polling types done on tight timeframe. This bias are widely used for opinion survey when the entity commissioning the survey wish to get a specific result. This is why this channel TLDS is using a mean of different survey when presenting polling result, to neutralize the slight bias usually present in partisan survey.

[@davidford3115]

Indeed. The one question that Rassmussen asked in 2016 that eliminated most of the bias was "Who do you think your neighbor will vote for?"

[@XIIchiron78]

You didn't mention the electoral college or other types of gerrymandering at all which I feel is a major oversight - even when polls are relatively accurate (like in 2016) they don't account for the fact that _some votes are worth much more than others._

[@thefootballexpert2023]

This is a mistaken opinion and just a sore loser take. The poll in 2016 were bad and some may say that the 2020 polls were worse. Susan Collins was expected to lose by 4 to 5 points and she won by 9. There was a Washington Post poll that has Biden winning Wisconsin by 18 points and he won it by .1

[@XIIchiron78]

@@thefootballexpert2023 I didn't say polls were reliable. They aren't, and they're getting worse, probably largely because who even answers random cold calls anymore? And the fact that most polls are like 200-1000 people scaled to an entire population using statistical fuckery that leads to overfitting. But it's important to recognize that even were they accurate, they still may not be very valuable for predicting the winner, if the race is at all close, because American democracy is not very representative. For example in 2016 the cumulative prediction from a large sampling of polls had Hillary at +3 or so, which was only about a percent off the actual results. Yet she lost by a huge margin where it actually mattered, because she barely ran a campaign and nobody showed up assuming she would easily win, probably at least in part due to early polls. I'm not really sure what sore loser is supposed to mean here either? You should also note that Ranked Choice (aka instant runoff) elections (as in Maine) are notoriously difficult to poll for and often chaotic. The winner depends highly on elimination order. It's not a very good replacement for choose one FPTP (doesn't fix the spoiler effect either). Check out STAR voting and Approval voting for actual solutions.

[@thefootballexpert2023]

@@XIIchiron78 Okay I think I understand more of what you are saying. So then two questions 1. Do you agree with any of Andrew Yang's voting policy if so which 2. Comparing the electoral college and gerrymandering isn't fair or right. Also with the electoral college we could have hours long discussion about it like some people have but the point that I would make is this that you have to win the "game" Hillary Clinton lost that election because of her appeal to California and New York and her lack of appeal to Ohio and Michigan

[@yoshimeier3060]

I think an important part is that polls show trends in voter movement quite well even though they might not get the axact numbers right.

[@nathanngumi8467]

Very interesting!

[@uddishbagri9055]

1:20 the easy part framing the question LOL, "Leading Questions - Yes Prime Minister" search this on youtube and see how important it is to ask the "Correct" questions

[@shja1998]

When a person or a group starts viewing the "other side" as demonic or completely irredeemable, the genuine mistrust among people is the next stage. Polling is just as useless, in predicting the winner, as asking ones neighbour who they are voting for. Polling has to take on a new role(imo this should've always been the case) which is to just show what the country's general mood is but not a definitive one.

[@atlasb7452]

How do they ask people to participate in polls? Do they call citizens, door knock, or is it from those pop ups on websites?

[@danielwebb8402]

First 2

[@chhitijpahari1011]

Its mostly calls

[@frapino]

The problems is simple to solve: 1. You need larger pools of people to increase accuracy. 2. You also need a larger spread of the polling locations to catch diferences in different areas.. 3. Pollsters sell more polls if they show a close race. Solution is to set fixed dates and amount of polls no matter the result. 4. Stop paying for inacurate polls. But media wont do theese things because they get more viewers/readers when they report a close race or they they show different results from different pollsers. The real soloution to get this issue fixed is to first stop consuming polls on our side until they become more serious, as long as we keep consuming nonsense they will keep feeding us nonsense.

[@Fr00stee]

A larger pool of people wont fix #1. You'll still have the same proportion of people underrepresented due to the self selection bias in the data.

[@sebastiang7394]

There is already the perfect poll. The election itself. Polls are basically just useless and unnecessary.

[@whoiamiamnot2104]

I'm American born and raised. Im retired Army. I'm a registered voter. I've never not voted. I'm not a registered member of any party. I've never done any type of political poll. I've asked all of my immediate family. All of my friends including other military veterans. People that are registered party members. None of them have ever taken part in any political poll. That's why I don't put much weight behind them. Who are the people doing these polls? How are they done? Over the phone, mailed in, online? It just seems like a flawed system to gather data.

[@doctorspock1930]

Hi, A correction when it comes to stratified sampling, which is the fondation behind this whole idea of having a representative panel instead of having a uniform measure over the entire population you put in your panel (you'd call that "randomly selecting people" even though, well, both strategies are random). Consider the following toy problem. You have 2 coins, one is skewed with a rate of Heads that is 40%. The other one is skewed with a rate of Heads that is 60%. Your experiment is the following: you select one of the two coins (evenly, 50% proba each) and then you check out the proportion of Heads. In this case, you can think of those "Heads" as the number of people voting Trump and the first selection would be the college educated people or whatever. So there are two Monte Carlo strategies to address this problem : 1 - you go through this experiment a number of time and you get a proportion of Heads and that's it, you're done. You can compute an estimate of your statistical error. 2 - you can select your sample so that you get the same number of skewed coins of each type, and only then compute the proportion of Heads. You can compute an estimate of your statistical error, and we can demonstrate it is a bit better than the former. However, *both techniques work*. So when you were claiming "College education was fudging the estimates and causing problems", well no not really. It is amongst the statistical error which is the only error publicly estimated in data poll (the other error types are taken into account somehow but don't participate to their error report). When you're saying that there could be another factor which would cause similar problems, again no. Say, if people start voting with "if they wear a belt" or whatever and we don't control for it with stratified sampling (sampling people with belt exactly at the proportion they exist in the voting population) we are just going to have a higher variance (which is anyway estimated) and therefore the error is gonna be showing at higher. But this is controlled. Now, the part that explains that polls are wrong is more complicated, it has to do with model error and bias error. An example of bias error is the fact your sampling population is different from your panel population, something you explained very well with the example of trump voters being overly reluctant to answer polls. They correct for that, but don't estimate the error and frankly it's very rough how they do it. The model error has to do with either people lying in their response or changing their mind. Again, there's some correction but it's roughly done.

[@templetonpatrick]

My British brother, Quinnipiac, the university in Connecticut who conducts polls, is pronounced Kwin-Ah-Pee-Ack. 🙏

[@Purp4040]

If its over 10 points yes. I always keep a 10 point margin to be on safe sound anything under you usually have to wait till election day. And depending on who ran the poll.

[@illegalalien6542]

If 2016 was any indicator... NO

[@theconqueringram5295]

I'd say take polls with a grain of salt and stay updated.

[@jeremywhite92]

Thank you to 538 for providing all the data and graphics in today's video!

[@TheRealUSArmy]

Be weary of their polls though

[@andyl8055]

From a purely mathematical point of view, two in a row for an event like this doesn't mean much but the significance seems higher when it's such a rare event with such large consequences. Nate Silver, key contributor to the model that so many commentators cite now, has personally said he'd want to see another two events coming out skewed Democrat before he agreed there was some systemic polling issue. Remember also that 2018 underestimated Democrats, Georgia polling was dead on, and Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin were off. It isn't all off in the same way. Finally, pollsters are still adjusting their methodologies.

[@randomhuman2595]

They were right for Georgia last time around.

[@raney150]

Yeah, it highly depends on state honestly. Georgia is one of the better polled states. Florida is getting to be one of the worst for polling.

[@nolunch4908]

Things have certainly gotten complicated for a lot of people. As a conservative and I'm sure a lot of other conservatives who don't like Trump. Have a problem also with liberal Democrats but also have a problem with ultra conservative Trump supporters and we get kind of caught in the middle so when polars ask us who do you want to vote for we either say we're not going to vote for anyone or undecided

[@sagnikganguly4651]

Well, sometimes it helps in hearing the argument of both sides. And this midterm, abortion is going to be the biggest issue.

[@Messier__]

@@sagnikganguly4651 Dont forget about the economy!

[@CatherineKimport]

A big part of it is, like, the question they ask are terrible, and they take WAY too long to get through their questions. They always start out like, "oh, could you take this quick poll? It's only five minutes" and then like 30 minutes later they're still yacking away at you. And they phrase the questions so absurdly. I hate every pollster. I wish we could ban them.

[@aaronjones4465]

People forget that polling is of a current or when the polled was conducted. They don’t predict the future

[@blitzme99]

the 2020 polls were very accurate. There were a few anomalies like Florida, but Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and PA were all very accurate in terms of the results.

[@lordfarquaad6189]

Joe Biden was predicted to win Wisconsin by an average of 10%, he won by 0.6%, Accurate my ass

[@blitzme99]

@@lordfarquaad6189 can you please provide that poll? I saw no polls like that.

[@itsalongday]

@Star I don't remember the numbers but if those deciding states had an outcome close to 50/50, and we still keep in mind the mentioned effects, that might have been enough to flip the result

[@mattheww.6232]

@@itsalongday I think the "emergency COVID voting" measures had more of an effect.

[@lordfarquaad6189]

rcp gives an average of 6.7% lead, Biden only got 0.7%. Off by a factor of about 10 with a sample size of 8 polls.

[@EverettBurger]

The difference between polling and push-polling should be discussed as well.

[@SkepticalRaptor]

Five Thirty Eight ranks pollster quality and gives more weight to better polls. Rasmussen is not a highly rate poll, not just because of its Republican bias but also because of the quality of the underlying poll.

[@davidford3115]

And yet, they asked the one question "who do you think your neighbor will vote for?" which made their predictions closest to the actual results. Nate Silver's 538 has been completely worthless since the 2014 elections. To this day he has never corrected for his own biases (because he refuses to admit them) which make his predictions completely worthless.

[@PRWilson88]

Ideally, we should ban polls. People like to be on the winning side. What ever it is, we should be following our opinions on the matter not the mass.

[@iowa_don]

Today, thanks to a crossword, I finally know what TLDR means - Too Long, Didn't Read.

[@WaffleSSSSSPLUS]

whats the point of polling at all anyway, just campaign and if they dont like it lose

[@Bluefoot65]

in Wisconsin Trump won 53 counties Biden won 14 counties with the highest population Biden won by roughly 20 thousand votes in a state of 5.8 million people Because the calling centers are in urban and it is free to make an local call there is a financial reason to keep the calls as local as much as possible. There is a double bias in rural areas when there are less than 5 people per square kilometer it is not cost effective to put up a cell tower except major highways. there is no cell coverage on rural farms. the landline is unresponsive because they are in the fields. Rural areas get less calls because it is more expensive to call them from the call center and the rural call are more likely to be unresponsive. I am not sure how you would go about correct the problem

[@jps0117]

NY's 19th district, not state.

[@antoniomromo]

I don't see the point of polls for anything other than the politicians. Polls are either drastically off (as in 2016) or within the margin of error (2020). So basically it's impossible to know until the results are in. So there is no reason for the average American to care about polling.

[@fraliexb]

I never trust polls. Just VOTE!!!!

[@CapitonnePlanet]

VOTE 💙💙💙

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

Yep voting straight red

[@davidford3115]

@@YankeeValleyOutdoors Don't do that. Vote CONSERVATIVE, not Red. Voting blindly red is how you get Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Adam Kinzinger, and the rest of the RINOs.

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

@@davidford3115 Anything's better than a Democrat. You know why Democrats always win because they vote blue no matter who. Suck up your pride and get out and vote.

[@drkrbrown]

I wouldn't answer a pollster

[@hughjass1044]

I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said - "Dogs know best what to do with polls."

[@davidford3115]

Churchill has several great lines! I love his response to being called drunk- "Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning, I will be sober, and you will still be ugly."

[@hughjass1044]

@@davidford3115 He has hundreds of gems! He was a prize!

[@kevinjohnanand]

Polls don't matter. Go out and vote or request an absentee like your rights depend on it. They just might.

[@telotawa]

nope, i just look at prediction markets

[@gp-1542]

There’s gonna be a point were voters will just ignore them or just don’t talk to them

[@andiiiiiiiiiii]

A British guy calling New York's 19th district a "state" is funny but cute x)

[@mikelieberman6924]

That's not NY's 19th state. That's the New York nineteenth congressional district. A single district has not a damned thing to do with national sentiment. Further, no one in the US is expecting a Republican blowout since the SCOTUS decision overturning Roe V. Wade. It still leans Republican but we can't know until the actual election how motivated voters will be in November regardless of how motivated they were in Kansas this summer. Your 'simple' questions are NOT simple. The issue is linked to motivation on an issue and issues are fluid. An issue that is important now may not seem important in sixty days. Generic ballot polls do not reflect the gerrymandering effect on congressional districts. They only tell us about national sentiment but not how the vote turns out.

[@unconventionalideas5683]

It’s a very bell weather district that has always reflected national sentiment.

[@theyoungcentrist9110]

We should just ignore what the polls saying and turnout for the candidates & parties that best align with our values regardless. Don’t bother about the polls. Your vote and you volunteering for political parties & for their candidates campaigns is what will at the end of the day help get your people elected into Congress, the state legislatures, & also as your governor. Get out & vote this November! This is the most important election of our life time!

[@Balibaliadashi]

Polling is just hard to have accurate when there’s so many elections and you don’t know exactly who is going to vote. Full stop. There’s a reason we have elections and not just decisions by poll.

[@mattstirling7494]

Ooof. The coathanger image is in such bad taste.

[@Stephon9015]

No

[@kimemia_maina]

19th District

[@benjaminmajeski140]

I don’t think American attitudes change very much, it’s likely that the results are going to be very similar to 2020, with a slight edge to the republicans in the house, and democrats in the senate, because that’s where the trends are heading.

[@gatb4387]

Walker, MTG, and Karry Lake are reason enough to not vote for the GOP. That party has gone absolutely insane!

[@jiggy7108]

How come?

[@spyrostrik7934]

Biden,.pelosi and AOC are reasons enough to not vote for the democrats.

[@BooleanDev]

mtg seems pretty reasonable though. don’t believe everything you read

[@guntherdergarstigeganter6431]

@@BooleanDev Yes, I loved it when she harassed the survivor of a school shooting. Very reasonable.

[@CapitonnePlanet]

Yeah no more GOP

[@imperialhistati2348]

The answer is yes

[@NON155]

ON MY VIEWS ITS LIKEA GAMBLE 🎰 WAYS . NOPE

[@kasper7203]

Has any American in the chat ever been polled? In South Africa we don't have anything like it.

[@albundy7459]

The last 2 presidential elections should tell you to take polls with a fine grain of salt.

[@joecampbell7236]

Just had a thought about this channels traction. TLDRUS is an unfortunate acronym. Might put some people off at first glance? Maybe add a hyphon? or an 'A' ? or you could put in the 'N' for 'news' - TLDRNUS, TLDR-US or TLDR-USA

I agree with your analysis but as an independent I absolutely believe that Comey affected the election of 2016. The polls even showed a 2 - 2.5 bump for Trump after Oct. 28. My girlfriend at the time, later told me that she hated them both but reopening the investigation, (Comey's Oct 28 letter) was her deciding factor. She also admitted to regretting her vote.

[@kevinw2592]

People lie to pollsters. That seems fairly obvious.

[@matthewshields]

No polling is awful usually leaning Democrat.

[@mattalford3932]

The problem is when pollsters under count democrats or Republicans. It seem pollsters are stuck on historical context more than they should be.

[@ForestFWhite]

explanation: non-random samples + large variance = unsupported trends ... learn stats.

[@LinhNguyen-ui4lh]

Short answer: no

[@gordonhowell9701]

Pollsters are just bookies with a worse business model

[@schroederscurrentevents3844]

Just remember that a baseball pitch being hit is a 30% chance. So yes, even if it’s 70/30, baseballs get hit and republicans could win.

[@Daniboi971]

No, no you cannot.

[@CapitonnePlanet]

Blue Wave is coming 🌊🌊🌊

[@thedirty530]

Roevember is getting closer

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

@@thedirty530 Murdering babies really energizes you you people are disgusting

[@davidford3115]

Yeah, how did that work out 4 years ago? Smallest Democrat congressional majority in American history.

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

@@davidford3115 I'm not stupid enough to let Democrats take the Senate once the filibuster is gone they will pass anything they want🤫 They will make DC and Puerto Rico States giving them four new senators. They will federalize elections. They will give citizenship to 23 million illegal aliens. Yeah I'm going to vote straight red or my vote will never matter again.

[@davidford3115]

@@YankeeValleyOutdoors Then you are giving the Dems that very control by supporting RINOs who WILL assist them in doing ALL of that just to spite you. Don't be the GOP's abused spouse. Vote CANDIDATES, not party. Let the RINOs fail WITHOUT your support.

[@r0gu3gaming]

Damn bro talk faster

[@Flipflop437]

I have heard this same kind of story so many times, and it is an entirely meaningless conversation. If the polls say a Republican candidate has a 30% chance of winning and the Democratic candidate has a 70% chance of winning, just because the Republican candidate ends up winning doesn’t mean the polls were wrong. The Republican candidate had a whopping 30% chance of winning. Just because it is less likely, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

[@Simon-tc1mc]

I think the main issue is that people follow the wrong polls and are easily misled. The generic ballot means nothing, you need to look at individual races. Everyone thinks 2016 was so inaccurate just because Clinton was way up in national polls, but the race for President is a state by state race. Clinton did win the popular vote solidly over Trump, so the polls were right.

[@davidford3115]

What was it that the great Senate Democrat Tip O'Neil said? "All politics is local"?

[@kain6996]

No dems are 10 points behind still and you need to get out there is how you should act and think no matter what the polls say

[@Christopher_Vose]

Can we trust TLDR News US?

[@sebastianluhn1908]

What was untrustworthy in this video for you?

[@Christopher_Vose]

@@sebastianluhn1908 That was more about TLDR and its various channels in general. They have a long history of poorly researching the topics on which they speak.

[@justsomedeadguy439]

No

[@charlesmartinez5869]

TLDW: No.

[@sebastianluhn1908]

Then you should watch it.

[@charlesmartinez5869]

@@sebastianluhn1908 All he did was list reasons it's hard to poll.

[@explodingwolfgaming8024]

Commenting 4 algorithm

[@djp1234]

They need to create one centralized website where people can vote online using their ID. That would be accurate polling data. Also we need to get rid of the electoral college, have ranked choice voting, and A FUCKING DEMOCRACY.

[@davidford3115]

Ranked voting results in victors that NOBODY wants. If you cannot achieve a simple majority (50%+ 1), you do not have the confidence of the electorate to govern. Do keep in mind that a certain German Chancellor in the 1930s won with just 31% of the votes cast.

[@antonygikas8817]

That wouldn't be accurate data. The people who would vote in these polls would be younger than the average voter. Very few retirees know how to use the internet. Also, a lot of people would understandably be scared to give their ID and voting preferences to a website.

[@jzzzxxx]

so 10 minutes to say "I don't know, maybe".. but hey he says it in an European accent.

[@Mrjonnyjonjon123]

Spoiler alert: No

[@jwil4286]

About the raid: it was more than just the far right who disapproved of the raid; many independents even saw it as politically motivated. So it’s really a double-edged sword.

[@thedirty530]

🌊 Its getting closer! No time for complacency, but ROEvember is coming!

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

You way underestimate how quick the US population forgets things

[@thedirty530]

@@AdamSmith-gs2dv Says one unaffected by the change! Thats not the case for everyone!

[@thomasboyd1037]

Appreciate your work. Art Bezukavenko win mid terms US Democrats politically 52 Democrats seats US Senate and hold on to House win House for US Democrats. Art Bezukavenko win STV voting system for UK general election politically England London Britain. UK state pension increase with triple lock that 10.1% rise in England Britain politically Thomas. Art Bezukavenko help Labour party win British general election politically in May 2024 UK general election politically Thomas.

[@KodaJosh098]

The Dems are not holding on to the house. They have a better chance at holding the Senate.

[@zackg8019]

Literally your entire set up was composed of two false claims. You implied that two opinions that were so rare I never even heard them were widespread. I couldn't finish the video when your initial sentence is so wrong

[@Fr00stee]

What are you talking about

[@thehucklebillyfenn]

@@Fr00stee that American polling has a tough time & that Donald Trump was largely underrepresented in polling in 2016. They’re both wrong. Polling is typically accurate within the small margin of error. Most people just look at one sided polling as biased when in reality the tight races are typically manufactured to sell more polling news. Trump wasn’t predicted to win by most pollsters, but his win was in the margin of error, he just so happen to get the exact number of states within that. He was predicted to lose the popular vote by polls which was correct. That around 1.2% of error was simply more one sided than we figured when looking at the electoral college. Polling isn’t a perfect system, but it works fairly well for what it is. Most polling almost got the 2020 election exactly right besides Florida. It was another one of the arguments Trump republicans made toward election fraud (that the results were so accurate that they must’ve known the result ahead of time)

[@Geo-ko2sx]

But… those were both facts. Polls were wrong for both elections, putting their credibility in question

[@Ledpooplin55]

@@Fr00stee Should I type slower?

[@Ledpooplin55]

@@Geo-ko2sx "A few weeks ago, pollsters were predicting a Democrat wipeout in November". No they weren't. A few months ago maybe. And 'pollsters' were not showing Ryan down by 8. They showed him down by a couple points at most. He's exaggerating to make a point and cherry picking, which is not a good way to start a video about how you're supposed to interpret polls, with one exaggeration and one cherry pick. You're trying to tie this into the premise of the video, which I didn't watch, so I'm not invested in whatever the premise is. You seem invested in the notion that polls are questionable. My point has nothing to do with that. My point is that this is a video about how to look at polls and it began with two factually inaccurate depictions of polling 1) that 'a few weeks ago' polls showed Dems getting wiped out. No one was saying that a few weeks ago. The polls started to shift after Dobbs, which was in June. And the wipeout narrative completely disappeared after the KS referendum. He's exaggerating to make it seem like it changed overnight, as if it was it must have been bad polling either then and now, when in actuality it evolved pretty gradually over 4 months and for easily identifiable reasons. 2) He suggested the Dem Pat Ryan was down 8 points, which would make him winning suggest that polls were insanely off the mark. Maybe one poll said that at one point, giving him the benefit of the doubt, but the average near the election showed it was pretty close with Ryan down a bit maybe. And his margin of winning was pretty reasonably within margins of error. So it was polled accurately. Again, my point is not that polls are or are not accurate. My point is he didn't represent polls accurately in order to make his point. And he didn't really need to. There are accurate examples, so the fact that he chose inaccurate examples not only seems disingenuous but also makes his knowledge of polling questionable since you really don't have to give bad examples. He gave like 4 examples, you can find 4 instances of polls being off, but he wiffed on half of them. Weird choice.

[@augustuswade9781]

Imma go with trafalgar

[@travisgreen2930]

Why

[@HumanAction76]

The other issue is people like me. A registered democrat that votes every cycle and answers every poll (when asked) but haven't voted for a democrat since 1992. Ya, Clinton was a mistake I will never repeat. I vote a mix of libertarian and republican candidates.

[@josjos2203]

U actually aren’t an issue, ur part of the 8% of registered democrats that vote republican Also why be democrat when u don’t vote for them lol

[@Fr00stee]

Why are you a registered democrat if you vote libertarian or republican

[@newstartyt3700]

so you're a pre-1980s democrat or what?

[@thehucklebillyfenn]

Would you find yourself more of the old dixiecrat form of democrat? I’m talking more on the local control and government spending aspects not so much the racial ones.

[@HumanAction76]

@@thehucklebillyfenn Not old enough to be a dixiecrat, plus I'm from NY.

[@Ard17i]

Civilwar coming..??🇺🇸🙄🤔

[@thedirty530]

Only one side calling for that... but be careful what you wish for! 😉

[@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection]

I hope it's just gonna be a coup that overthrows of government.

[@thedirty530]

@@benchoflemons398 Lmao... You know how many of these little boys would crumble if they got their feelings hurt? Real strength is not just physical but you'd be a fool to think its divided by party affiliation...You might f*** around and find out what happens when you meet a true American patriot!

[@thedirty530]

@@benchoflemons398 This is America... Its comical to say only some have them! Notice how only some even give "these pronouns" the time of day... while others have better things to be concerned with. And... LMAO feelings! Clearly you can't look in the mirror when all your decisions are based around emotional reactions... Just because some would prefer not to wear their anger on their sleeves, doesn't mean we're not capable of it! 😉

[@thedirty530]

@@benchoflemons398 As one with many myself, im not afraid of those who feel they have to hide behind one to show strength! Like I said before...F*** around and find out!

[@thefootballexpert2023]

Trafalgar is the best poll group out there. They did the best job at finding the Trump vote

[@davidford3115]

Don't forget the Rassmussen question "Who do you think your neighbor will vote for?" That did more to account for the "shy Trump voter" than any other polling question in 2016.

[@thefootballexpert2023]

@@davidford3115 The only problem I have with Rasmussen is that they don't do State by state polls

[@davidford3115]

@@thefootballexpert2023 And that is a VERY FAIR critique. And I agree with you incidentally.

[@viktoryanokovich3699]

They were the most accurate in comparison with other polls, but that doesn’t mean that they’re mostly accurate. That just means trafalgar is LESS worse than other pollsters. Go look at their final 2020 map Trafalgar overestimated trump support in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, overestimated Biden support in Wisconsin, Texas, and Florida.

[@exdeath64]

Please, PLEASE vote blue. I do not want to have to underground railroad my LGBT friends to Canada.

[@jbalmarez6641]

Polling are pretty accurate. The Electroral college are not.

[@davidford3115]

And yet we don't decide presidential elections from opinion polls. The electoral college was all about coalition building and preventing large states from single-handedly deciding the election. If one only needs California, New York, and Florida to win, why should anyone ever care about the rest of the country?

[@mariokartpro7406]

Trump doesn't care about anyone else but himself. change my mind.

[@alainarchambault2331]

Don't take it for granted. The MAGA GOP must be taught a lesson.

[@daviddempsay4930]

Too long, didn't listen.

[@RideshareOtter]

The Dems screwed up in 2020 ... They really thought that Hillary was more liked then she really was. Most of my dem friends really didn't like here.

[@sevret313]

Both the 2020 and 2016 presidental elections were within the margin or error.

[@thomasboyd1037]

Art Bezukavenko think win US mid terms for US Democrats politically he win US Senate Democrats politically 53 US Democrats politically Thomas. Is he super rich Art Bezukavenko yes Thomas he millionaire that real friend to you Thomas. How England London politically alright. Your better off in Italy Tyrol Thomas as Italian nurse. George from Ireland Eton college told you truth about UK monarchy Thomas. Italy Rome respect England. God save King of England Charles 3. Art Bezukavenko win UK general election politically for Labour party in 2024 May general election. Art Bezukavenko win STV voting system for UK general election politically England London Britain. You will win Italy Rome general election politically Thomas for Brothers of Italy party.

[@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection]

As a Pennsylvanian. I'll be voting Green Party. I dont support the policies of Democrats or Republicans.

[@analara9872]

have fun throwing your vote away!

[@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection]

@@analara9872 voting Green every election and cheering for a coup to overthrow our government system.

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

I'll gladly be voting for Dr Oz

[@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection]

@@YankeeValleyOutdoors do you like OZ or are you just voting Republican because you dont like Democrats? I'm generally curious

[@YankeeValleyOutdoors]

@@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection I'm voting for Oz because I don't want to socialist ogre in there that wants to remove the filibuster destroying everything I believe in. Once the filibuster is gone there will be nothing left one party rule forever. Democrats will make Puerto Rico and DC States and give them four new senators. Then pass their government takeover of Elections taking it away from the states and giving all the power of Elections to the federal government. Since the filibusters out of the way they will give citizenship to 24 million illegal immigrants. I could go on and on.