The truth is that many people believe lying to pollsters is fair play. Political polling is a lot like the odds on racehorses.
Sometimes, it is more accurate than other times, but it helps if you buy a ticket to win, place, or show. In politics, it is all about winning. I do not have verifiable statistics, but I have sufficient anecdotal knowledge to believe that many people routinely lie to any pollster they encounter if they think it will help the viability of their candidate.
So why should we believe the horse-race-style numbers that get touted around when a day of local and statewide voting just concluded revealed tremendous support for Democratic candidates in red and blue states? A lot of that hinged on a social issue— stopping abortion— which is not a winning idea for those opposed to family planning. So, many Republicans are backing away from talking about it.
Concurrently, polling numbers suggest a 77-year-old candidate is favored over the 81-year-old candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Honestly, both are old, but one makes clear he wants to murder the Constitution, and the other supports and wants to improve the Democracy we have. My reality rests on multiple misgivings about Donald Trump and Republicans who support the idea of restoring the federal government to the level of impotence it had before the Civil War in 1860. war.
Donald Trump’s trial testimony in the just concluded New York civil suit that found him guilty of business fraud demonstrates he is unfit for any public office in America, even before we get to disqualification under the 14th amendment about violating one’s oath to the Constitution. Criminal cases may leave him out of business, short of cash, and bereft of honor, notwithstanding a presidential library.
Many of us are frustrated by the daily marketing deluge delivered to our phones. The mobility of a phone with Internet-delivered e-mail and text messaging desensitizes us with constant pleas for things we neither want nor need. A common reaction to this “overload” is to ignore them all. People today are so wary of strangers—at the door or on the street—that they won’t talk to anyone who knocks.
There is every reason to think the polling numbers, no matter how carefully weighted by honest pollsters, have been warped by the respondents, purposefully or because the questions didn’t offer enough latitude in the answers. Abortion is a complex issue, awash in nuance and anguish, which supports my theory on polling.
Evangelical Christians can have heartfelt opposition, but many devoutly religious people, folks in all demographic communities, consider it as a personal right and choice. The bumper sticker said it all: Don’t like abortion. Don’t have one.
Republican presidential aspirant Nikki Halley, former South Carolina governor, made that clear when election results delivered overwhelming support to add abortion rights to Ohio’s state constitution.
“And what I’ll tell you is, as much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said, following up a more standard abortion-is-evil answer from Ron DeSantis at a GOP Debate.
“So, when we’re looking at this, there are some states that are going more on the pro-life side. I welcome that. Some states are going more on the pro-choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case, but the people decided. Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can, support as many moms as we can, and stop the judgment. We don’t need to divide America over this issue anymore.”
Family planning restrictions have failed in every red state where it was a ballot issue since the six Supreme Court conservatives opted for ideology over precedent in revoking the Roe V. Wade decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion. Results at the ballot box area are a reality. Polling today is more often a reflection of political marketing skills rather than actual voting behavior.
A valid poll works best if there is an accurate random sample of the population you want to study. Voting gets closer to that than any polling. But voters want an index of performance in the weeks and months ahead of an election, and polling is an indicator of sentiment. It is Easier when it’s a small population, such as a precinct or a Congressional district. Actual voting behavior is concrete, polling is quicksand.
A response rate of 75% from a polling sample was considered good years ago. Today, some pollsters are working with a 5% response rate and weighting results and fiddling with formulae aimed at balancing out the sample shortcomings. In any case, when you add together all the votes cast in a particular race, you have both a sample and an accurate result.
That brings us back to respondent honesty, regardless of the question. Internet polling is useless because people don’t take it seriously. People can represent themselves as anyone online. They can tell the truth or lie. But the real problem with online is you’re just “polling” people who want to be polled—which is automatically a severe fault in sampling. It’s the mother of all self-selected samples.
By: KENNETH TIVEN