this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
759 points (95.9% liked)

politics

19159 readers
4472 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [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.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [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.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

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

load more comments (11 replies)
[–] [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.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [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.

load more comments (98 replies)