WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Please donate to keep ReaderRant online to serve political discussion and its members. (Blue Ridge Photography pays the bills for RR).
Polls still use landlines. What Millennial has a landline? Ol' Joe has a secret weapon: T.S.
Polls use different methods. Yes, landlines are still used to a small extent, so too are cell phones, voice interactive responses, the internet, e-mails to selected participants, old fashioned pollster to caller question and answers, talking to the person. Now history has shown most polls to be accurate within their MOE as stated in the polls. What one needs to watch is the poll of all Adults, of registered voters or of likely voters. Pollsters change their methods over time. They get paid for the accuracy of their polling. A polling firm that is always off, inaccurate won’t stay in business long as both major parties and candidates want accuracy along with the news organizations, pundits, forecasters, you name it.
A couple of examples, the 2022 generic congressional poll with an MOE of plus or minus 3 points show a result of Republicans 48.0 to the democrats 45.5% a 2.5-point margin for the GOP. The final result was 50.6% republican, 47.8 for a margin for the GOP of 2.8 points. The final margin was well within the MOE of plus or minus 3 points. The 0.003% difference is about as close as any polling can get.
In 2016 polls had Clinton winning the popular vote by 3.3 points, she won it by 2.1 points. The 1.2-point difference was still well within the MOE of plus or minus 3 points.
Now the 2020 polling average had Biden winning the popular vote by 7.2 points, he won it by 4.5 points. Barely within the MOE of plus or minus 3 points, off by 2.7 points, but considered accurate as the average of polls were within the MOE.
If you look at the polling average today, Trump vs. Biden. Trump is leading in the polls by 3.9 points. But applying the MOE of plus or minus 3 points as most polls are, Trump’s lead may be as small as 0.9 of a point or as much as 6.9 points. I always consider the MOE when doing my forecasting. Anything within the MOE, I consider it a tie. One other thing is polls have a long history of over inflating the Democrats by a couple of points as you can see in both 2016 presidential and in the 2020 generic congressional along with the presidential. The 2020 generic congressional ballots had the democrats winning by 6.8 points, they won the generic by 3.1. Slightly outside the MOE. But the polls were still inflating the Democrats winning margin.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
