The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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Raoul

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Don't worry. These same pollsters had Trump at anything between 1 - 8% chance at winning the Election last year. These latest numbers are likely to be as equally rock solid.
The national polls were correct last year - Hillary up 2-3 points and she won the popular points by roughly the same.
 

Buchan

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The national polls were correct last year - Hillary up 2-3 points and she won the popular points by roughly the same.
Trump voters, similar to the 'shy Tory phenomenon' in the U.K., don't particularly care for polls. They often don't respond nor partake in them, hence why his support is always underestimated.
 

Raoul

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Trump voters, similar to the 'shy Tory phenomenon' in the U.K., don't particularly care for polls. They often don't respond nor partake in them, hence why his support is always underestimated.
They don't much care for facts either. The important reality in all of this is that the national polls were correct.
 

berbatrick

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Trump voters, similar to the 'shy Tory phenomenon' in the U.K., don't particularly care for polls. They often don't respond nor partake in them, hence why his support is always underestimated.
But it wasn't underestimated last year, except in particular state-wise polls. The national polls had it right.
 

berbatrick

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Trump voters, similar to the 'shy Tory phenomenon' in the U.K., don't particularly care for polls. They often don't respond nor partake in them, hence why his support is always underestimated.
I also love this perception that "Trump voters", who are basically the vast majority of the GOP base and a few hundred thousand Obama voters in the Midwest, are some mythical new creature that suddenly can't be polled.
 

berbatrick

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Trump voters, similar to the 'shy Tory phenomenon' in the U.K., don't particularly care for polls. They often don't respond nor partake in them, hence why his support is always underestimated.
And finally, UK polls underestimated Tories in 2015, Leave-rs in 2016, and Labour in 2017.
 

DenisIrwin

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So anyway... If I was in a room with 10 randomly chosen Americans, at least 3 of them would approve of Trump. That's some scary shit.
 

Buchan

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They don't much care for facts either. The important reality in all of this is that the national polls were correct.
For every poll you claim was correct, I can provide ten which were wildly inaccurate (state polls or otherwise). Trump was given a 1 - 8% chance of winning on practically every forecast in the country. How are those facts for you?
 

Raoul

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For every poll you claim was correct, I can provide ten which were wildly inaccurate (state polls or otherwise). Trump was given a 1 - 8% chance of winning on practically every forecast in the country. How are those facts for you?
You're citing odds not polls. The polls were spot on, with the exception of a few swing state polls in places like Wisconsin, Michigan etc.
 

matherto

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In fairness how updated were the polls?

Once Wikileaks dropped the Hillary email bomb her approval ratings went south quicker than Harvey Weinstein on an aspiring actress.

There wasn't that long between then and when people actually voted was there? Plenty of people on the fence or not wanting to vote would probably have voted Trump after that.
 

DOTA

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In fairness how updated were the polls?

Once Wikileaks dropped the Hillary email bomb her approval ratings went south quicker than Harvey Weinstein on an aspiring actress.

There wasn't that long between then and when people actually voted was there? Plenty of people on the fence or not wanting to vote would probably have voted Trump after that.
Charming.
 

Buchan

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You're citing odds not polls. The polls were spot on, with the exception of a few swing state polls in places like Wisconsin, Michigan etc.
They based those forecasts on the poll numbers - they weren't just plucked from thin air. Additionally, wasn't the Clinton campaign based almost exclusively on 'the data'? Placing absolute faith in difficult-to-accurately-quantify numbers is foolish, hence my point about approval ratings/polls being effectively worthless.
 

Raoul

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In fairness how updated were the polls?

Once Wikileaks dropped the Hillary email bomb her approval ratings went south quicker than Harvey Weinstein on an aspiring actress.

There wasn't that long between then and when people actually voted was there? Plenty of people on the fence or not wanting to vote would probably have voted Trump after that.
They were fairly up to date, although by the time Comey's 2nd announcement dropped that Hillary was not being investigated 10 days prior to voting day, too many people had already early voted by mail for that to make much of a difference.
 

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You're citing odds not polls. The polls were spot on, with the exception of a few swing state polls in places like Wisconsin, Michigan etc.
Yeah, the forecasts for how he'd actually do insofar as translating votes into winning stages were way off, but the actual voting predictions percentage wise weren't particularly far off.

Realistically that means Trump's popularity doesn't need to fall all that much for him to be in danger in 2020; a few close swing states were essentially what won it for him. Still...long way to go until then, but considering he's had no post-election boom popularity wise things don't exactly look great for him. Although Buchan finding an opportunity to jump to his defence isn't particularly surprising.
 

Raoul

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They based those forecasts on the poll numbers, not just plucked from thin air. After all, wasn't the Clinton campaign based almost exclusively on 'the data'? Placing absolute faith in difficult-to-accurately-quantify numbers is foolish, hence my point about approval ratings/polls being effectively worthless.
We are talking about the national polls, not state level ones. Most national polls had Hillary winning the popular vote and she did. Most polls also had it spot on in the states, with the exception of about 4-5 states where Trump won - and even in those, places like NC and FL were considered toss ups. Therefore its pretty myopic to say the polls got it wrong as a part of some extravagant hypothesis that we should ignore all polls in the present.
 

kps88

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Thank you.

Polls are certifiably useless but let's jerk each other off over Trump's (dis)approval ratings. :rolleyes:
Wait so all polls are useless now? Or only ones pertaining to Trump because his supporters don't do polls?
 

Cheesy

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They based those forecasts on the poll numbers - they weren't just plucked from thin air. Additionally, wasn't the Clinton campaign based almost exclusively on 'the data'? Placing absolute faith in difficult-to-accurately-quantify numbers is foolish, hence my point about approval ratings/polls being effectively worthless.
You're ignoring his key point, unsurprisingly. How the votes would translate into electoral college wins was way off but the actual percentages for each candidate were relatively on-point. Obviously these approval rating polls should be taken with a pinch of salt and won't be exact, but his general popularity continues to stagnate which shouldn't be seen as unsurprising when he dedicates most of his time to making an arse of himself and playing golf.
 

RedChip

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For every poll you claim was correct, I can provide ten which were wildly inaccurate (state polls or otherwise). Trump was given a 1 - 8% chance of winning on practically every forecast in the country. How are those facts for you?
This is a bit like saying bookies' odds were 'wrong' when a long shot wins.

Polls were not wrong; people just misunderstood them or even just plain ignored the margin of error.
 

Cheesy

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I'm not agitated at all. I just find it peculiar some here place so much emphasis on data when it's been an inaccurate indicator with quite a while now.
You're distorting facts here. The polls aren't bang on but always tend to be reasonably close. Even in 2015 in the UK and with Brexit, the polls were only a little bit off. Polling companies aren't perfect but they tend to be fairly close, relatively speaking.
 

Raoul

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I'm not agitated at all. I just find it peculiar some here place so much emphasis on data when it's been an inaccurate indicator with quite a while now.
You think its odd that people are measuring things with data ? Interesting.
 

berbatrick

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Thank you.

Polls are certifiably useless but let's jerk each other off over Trump's (dis)approval ratings. :rolleyes:
So, ignore 2 posts about the accuracy of polls involving Trump and previous polls involving his party, ignore the difference between the US and UK, and ignore that polls, even the wrong ones, tend to get the outline right (for example even the worst polls in the UK predicted party support to within 5% of the real number). Well done.
 

Buchan

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You think its odd that people are measuring things with data ? Interesting.
You extrapolated that from my post? Great.

I said 'so much emphasis'. Of course it can have value, but to base your entire campaign strategy (e.g. ignore visiting Wisconsin because the data suggested to) and place total faith in pre-election polls and post-election approval ratings is foolhardy.
 

DOTA

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Saw this earlier. Found it quite interesting. Apologies if we've had it previously.

 

Raoul

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You extrapolated that from my post? Great.

I said 'so much emphasis'. Of course it can have value, but to base your entire campaign strategy (e.g. ignore visiting Wisconsin because the data suggested to) and place total faith in pre-election polls and post-election approval ratings is foolhardy.
Let's wait and see how the investigation of Fusion GPS and Russian Trolls pans out in sussing out the discrepancies in the northern swings states.
 
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