this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 378 points 5 months ago (102 children)

Polls don't matter, especially this far out.

Vote. Put pressure on politicians to do better. But more than anything. Vote.

If the polls say he's 100% going to win. Vote. If you're in a state that goes blue every time for the last 100 years. Vote. If you're in a state that goes red every time for the last 100 years. Vote.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 5 months ago (14 children)

Polls always matter, you just have to understand polls.

This is with third party options and show Biden up 2% which is probably close to margin of error.

It doesn't mean Biden has it in the bag, but it means his chances are improved.

But Biden risks the same dangers Hillary did in 2016.

People don't really want to vote for them, they just don't want trump. So there's a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don't think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don't need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.

It's a dangerous game, and we wouldn't have to play it if we ran a candidate popular with Dem voters.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 5 months ago (6 children)

The margin of error for polls six months out from election, if memory serves, is about 14%.

I think people are phrasing this wrong: it’s not that the polls are worthless, it’s that it does not tell you what’s going to happen on Election Day in any real sense. They’re useful for watching trends and gauging short term changes and impact. They are useful for telling you how things are going. They do not tell you anything remotely useful about how things will be.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Nor are they even remotely reliable to gauge things in the short term.

The methodology of collecting this data can be so heavily bias that the pollers can get whatever result they're looking for, if they're pursuing a narrative. I could write a poll that leads the poll takers to just about any desired conclusion by choosing very targeted questions with bad faith multiple choice options, and by conducting the polls targeting specific demographics. It's a trivial thing to do.

Instead, you have to deep dive into the polling methodology, have a deep understanding of the quality of the poll operators, etc, to have any idea of if the poll was even trustworthy.

I, for one, dismiss polls entirely. There is too much disinformation, too many bad actors, whose entire goal is to "prove" their own biases in favor of their narrative, that the amount of shit buries the truth. So it seems a pointless exercise to sift through the shit to find the nuggets of truth, particularly when good faith polling isn't at all reliable in the first place.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It's wild, but it raining on election day might have more an effect than anything that's happened recently.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

True, but since you refused to run this year we've had to make do with Joe.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I see people saying their vote doesn't matter when they're in a highly partisan district, which is most of them.

News flash: Even the dumbest politicians can look at arithmetic. If they see their margins shrinking, they'll adjust. Or go full retard and double-down. And then get a worse beating.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Also local elections can be decided by one vote and can be just as important.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Typically more important for the average citizen. Federal changes may effect you in years, decades or never. Whereas your local politicians impact your day to day life.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Definitely not the case for women and queer people this year, but generally true.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

You haven't been to the circus show that is my city board of ed meetings.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I see people saying their vote doesn’t matter when they’re in a highly partisan district

I see people saying it when they're in heavily gerrymandered districts and deeply disenfranchised states. Dems have been playing the "Just go out and vote!" game in Florida for a quarter century, and Repubs keep finding new ways to yank the football. Even ballot initiatives don't work, as the Florida gerrymandered legislature just reverses out whatever voting rights or decriminalization laws the public passes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Okay, then protest. And also VOTE.

Throwing your hands up in the air saying "voting doesn't work so I'm not going to do anything" is just allowing them to dictate everything that will happen.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Well said. People also need to take steps to ensure they have not been kicked off of voter rolls (the Republican dirty tricks just never end). I think sites like vote.org can help with that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

And VOTE DOWN BALLOT. If Democrats voted down ballot as frequently as Republicans do, the Republicans would lose House and Senate by a wide margin.

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