Political Discussion

TenderLovingKiller® said:
Mail? In person? Internet? I don’t see those options as being any more effective.

Of course 538 which is a polling data media company is gonna say they are doing a great job.
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They aren't reviewing their own polls though, but based on what you're wanting out of the stats you aren't wrong, it's just that stats can't do that level of predictive forecasting that many want them to do when it comes to things like elections that have so many variables. Which is why general trends are the best it can usually do. Even in sports they tend to give a spread to account for the margin of error that the models predict. But no one really cares about that in elections, they only care about who wins or loses, not that the models fell within the margins they expected. That's what it means to be a reliable statistical model though, not that it predicts the outcome correctly.

I know AI and big data hopes that with large enough sets you'll reduce the margin of error, but so long as we aren't able to escape our simulation and see it from the outside, I don't think that will ever be possible when it comes to many human actions. But for the general trends and directions we go in as a species, they can be pretty helpful.
 
Hemotep said:
And the weighting I'm talking about isn't based on different groups being unrepresented. That is bad statistics. I mean the meta analyses that weight each poll based on total respondents so that it counts for the appropriate amount when combining with other national polls. They aren't adding anything to the data in those instances. They are just counting some as more and some as less based on the total size of the survey so that they can compare the data across surveys.
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This is the weighting I am referring to and it is a common practice but it’s far from an exact science.
www.pewresearch.org

1. How different weighting methods work

Historically, public opinion surveys have relied on the ability to adjust their datasets using a core set of demographics – sex, age, race and ethnicity,
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
This is the weighting I am referring to and it is a common practice but it’s far from an exact science.
www.pewresearch.org

1. How different weighting methods work

Historically, public opinion surveys have relied on the ability to adjust their datasets using a core set of demographics – sex, age, race and ethnicity,
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org
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The key here is the they do this for opt-in online surveys, as they mention in the analysis. Media companies, PACs, and internal candidate polling are likely to do this because they are working with convenience samples and good enough answers are all they usually need. We get flooded with these kinds of polling data, and that's what you'll get called and texted for. But for national polling that uses random samples, you can't use this kind of weighting. And you're not going to use a convenience sample because it won't be valid to infer from it to the general population.

Also big shout out to PEW who do some of the best work in data collection.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
There’s an inconsistency here that we’ll criticize her silence over Gaza when speaking up is the right thing to do, but would like her not to talk about the failures of domestic policy that allow gun violence to go completely unchecked at home if we think it’s bad electoral politics.
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I do not care about an assault weapons ban.

My pet issue is corporate regulation and breaking up monopolies-- which if the smoke around Khan is any indication- Kamala is on the wrong side on. But because Trump is the alternative, I can't take my ball and go home-- even if I'm pissed about how the process played out that landed us Kamala.

Independents who are very pro-gun and pro-Palastine voters have large chunks of people who will take the ball and go home. Harris perfectly landed the plane on Palestine yesterday imo. But if she wants to win she should focus on red flag laws and the type of gun control legislation MN Governor got passed instead of talking about taking people's guns away.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
I do not care about an assault weapons ban.

My pet issue is corporate regulation and breaking up monopolies-- which if the smoke around Khan is any indication- Kamala is on the wrong side on. But because Trump is the alternative, I can't take my ball and go home-- even if I'm pissed about how the process played out that landed us Kamala.

Independents who are very pro-gun and pro-Palastine voters have large chunks of people who will take the ball and go home. Harris perfectly landed the plane on Palestine yesterday imo. But if she wants to win she should focus on red flag laws and the type of gun control legislation MN Governor got passed instead of talking about taking people's guns away.
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My pet issue is seizing the means of production and sending the billionaires to Mars. It's a winning issue.
 
Hemotep said:
They aren't reviewing their own polls though, but based on what you're wanting out of the stats you aren't wrong, it's just that stats can't do that level of predictive forecasting that many want them to do when it comes to things like elections that have so many variables. Which is why general trends are the best it can usually do. Even in sports they tend to give a spread to account for the margin of error that the models predict. But no one really cares about that in elections, they only care about who wins or loses, not that the models fell within the margins they expected. That's what it means to be a reliable statistical model though, not that it predicts the outcome correctly.

I know AI and big data hopes that with large enough sets you'll reduce the margin of error, but so long as we aren't able to escape our simulation and see it from the outside, I don't think that will ever be possible when it comes to many human actions. But for the general trends and directions we go in as a species, they can be pretty helpful.
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In the end I think we share a similar understanding of what polls are and what they do. I think the issue is the narrative they generate. “Trump is winning, Kamala is losing, but is losing by less than Biden, Kamala has more appeal over all but less in swing states etc..”. The only real takeaway at this point is that this is currently a “within margin the of error” election at both the national and swing state level. Beyond that no one really know much of anything but the news media going to write a lot of stories and generating narratives that could very likely end up being false based on assumptions.
 
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TenderLovingKiller® said:
In the end I think we share a similar understanding of what polls are and what they do. I think the issue is the narrative they generate. “Trump is winning, Kamala is losing, but is losing by then than Biden, Kamala has more appeal over all but less in blue states etc..”. The only real takeaway at this point is that this is currently a “within margin the of error” election at both the national and swing state level. Beyond that no one really know much of anything but the news media going to write a lot of stories and generating narratives that could very likely end up being false based on assumptions.
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Yes, I fully agree on all this. It's a coin flip based on what we know now. But it is telling that with all the excitement of Biden dropping out, Harris still can't generate enough enthusiasm outside of the Democratic base on her candidacy alone and that's because she's deeply unpopular too. She's gotten a huge favorability bump, but man I'm not confident that will last. It just feels like another case of the Dems shooting themselves in the foot because of internal politics rather than what the population actually says they want. And like many of us on here, Biden's corpse would be better than Trump at most things, but it sure would be nice to get a candidate that was genuinely liked by voters. I'd love to see that again in my lifetime.

Edit: and Harris may still be able to pull that off, I just really want to see her out there trying and not just riding the anti Trump wave, which may not be strong enough this time with how horrible Americans institutional memories are.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Independents who are very pro-gun
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…were never going to vote for a Democrat and were always going to vote for Trump.

It’s like pretending that an independent who is very pro-choice was going to vote for Trump.

The “very” is the issue, no one who is angry about an assault rifle ban is just casually pro-gun. That is an extreme position.
 
Hemotep said:
Yes, I fully agree on all this. It's a coin flip based on what we know now. But it is telling that with all the excitement of Biden dropping out, Harris still can't generate enough enthusiasm outside of the Democratic base on her candidacy alone and that's because she's deeply unpopular too. She's gotten a huge favorability bump, but man I'm not confident that will last. It just feels like another case of the Dems shooting themselves in the foot because of internal politics rather than what the population actually says they want. And like many of us on here, Biden's corpse would be better than Trump at most things, but it sure would be nice to get a candidate that was genuinely liked by voters. I'd love to see that again in my lifetime.
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I think this country is pretty locked in on its tribalism at this point. I don’t imagine there being many moments like 2008 occurring any time in the near future.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
…were never going to vote for a Democrat and were always going to vote for Trump.

It’s like pretending that an independent who is very pro-choice was going to vote for Trump.

The “very” is is issue, no one who is angry about an assault rifle ban is just casually pro-gun. That is an extreme position.
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Even as someone who loves shooting AR15s, I'd support a ban in a heartbeat. Hell I'd support repealing the 2A.
 
It's still just wild to me that a kid who is a Trump supporter gets his father's weapon and almost changes the course of American history in a violent and terrible way yet no one wants to talk about how easy it is for anyone over 18 to do exactly that and any discussion of it is not allowed.
 
mdmost said:
It's still just wild to me that a kid who is a Trump supporter gets his father's weapon and almost changes the course of American history in a violent and terrible way yet no one wants to talk about how easy it is for anyone over 18 to do exactly that.
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It is not wild when you realize they've done nothing to stop any of this since Columbine. It is the price of being an American, you can be killed in a kindergarten class, a movie theater, work or any other imaginable place.. Trump just got incredibly lucky, Like you are saying everybody wants to talk about how the secret service failed, but not about the fact that just about anyone get a weapon of war and do what they like what with it.
 
Twentytwo said:
It is not wild when you realize they've done nothing to stop any of this since Columbine. It is the price of being an American, you can be killed in a kindergarten class, a movie theater, work or any other imaginable place.. Trump just got incredibly lucky, Like you are saying everybody wants to talk about how the secret service failed, but not about the fact that just about anyone get a weapon of war and do what they like what with it.
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Yes, I knew we'd never willingly get anywhere on gun violence after I saw the response people had after Sandy Hook which was "Obama better not try to take our guns away". It's just a sad reality we have to live in because the NRA and gun nuts decided any gun control opens the door so it can never be opened.
 
mdmost said:
It's still just wild to me that a kid who is a Trump supporter gets his father's weapon and almost changes the course of American history in a violent and terrible way yet no one wants to talk about how easy it is for anyone over 18 to do exactly that and any discussion of it is not allowed.
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The Trump supporter thing doesn’t even really matter. Your larger point still stands though. It’s way too easy for everyone in this country to get a gun. 2A is fine when you’re dealing muskets but it’s insane when you’re dealing handguns or assault weapons.

At this point I don’t fault anyone for carrying a gun, TBH. This is the country we live in, created by our own inaction, I understand why some people need guns to feel safe and secure against criminals, cops, domestic abusers, school shooters, and psychopaths. I wish we took gun ownership as seriously as we take car ownership but that’s just not the world we live in.
 
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