For the first time since 538 published our presidential election forecast for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Trump has taken the lead (if a very small one) over Harris. As of 3 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 18, our model gives Trump a 52-in-100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes. The model gives Harris a 48-in-100 chance.
Calling Silver a right winger is more than a bit silly. He’s not as far left as some but damn, to call hin right wing, that’s just some kind of ridiculous.
And no, he’s not affiliated with 538 but he is explaining how polling aggregation, which 538 and others do, works.
Again, even if he isn’t an outright right winger, that’s fine. I’m willing to back off on that. But polls do not matter, and in fact the only thing they seem to do is reduce turnout. I really don’t care about Nate’s thoughts, and never have since 2016. I think a lot of people stopped trusting polls and definitely stopped trusting him back then.
All they do is predict the future.
Here’s 538 going over the 2020 predictions (in a historically difficult polling year):
They sure didn’t get 2016 right, which is what I referenced and what caused distrust. Just because they got 2020 right doesn’t mean they’ll get 2024 correct. It’s meaningless and only serves to make people feel like they don’t have to turn out. They definitely don’t just “predict the future”.
Also, I’m not sure if quoting the very pollsters that got 2016 wrong will make people trust them now. It’s certainly not working for me.
Goodness gracious.
In 2016, 538 argued trump had a 1/4 chance of winning. And the thing about 1/4 changes is that they happen every so often, about, oh. 1/4 times.
And meanwhile, if you actually read what I quoted, you’ll note how astoundingly accurate they were in 2020.
And if you or anyone else is dumb enough to see “trump has a 51% chance of winning” and that somehow makes you not want to vote, damn, how many tries does it take you to put your shoes on the correct feet? Three?
I already voted, so don’t attempt insinuate that I’m not voting. You do realize that most people do not vote, right? And that most people are indeed idiots when it comes to politics? It’s those people that will not turn out when it’s needed because they saw a pollster say their candidate was ahead.
We’re in a country where a known racist conman was elected.
Except that isn’t true. In 2020, 2/3rds of eligible voters voted. Which, if your math is rusty, is a healthy majority of people.
I mean, if this is correct, polls showing trump ahead should depress Right votes which I presume we agree is a good thing. (Though, this seems counter to the whole narrative about Republican pollsters flooding the zone.)
I dunno, it really seems like you have a lot of problems with polls that are simply misunderstanding, like not knowing how aggregation works, not understanding what a probabilistic prediction is or just ignoring reality (like the impressive number of accurate predictions in most cycles.)
I think to dislike something, you should be moderately informed about it. Your attitude to polling feels a bit like right wing attitudes towards lgbtq stuff “I don’t get it, I don’t want to learn about it so I dislike it!”
And this is where I call it. You’re saying my (rightful) distrust of polling is comparable to straight up bigotry? They are not even close to the same thing, and honestly as a queer it’s pretty disgusting to see you bring up something that I’ve battled against my entire life all so you can feel like you’re the smartest one in the room.
I now see that you don’t really give a shit, and just want desperately to be right. I don’t need to talk to you about this any more.