Re polls, I think the most important factor for the election outcome is whether certain types of voters (esp black males and young people) in swing states either will not turn out or will vote for a third party candidate, and how many it will be. Polls really don't address that question, and it seems pretty hard to predict this far out anyway.
I’ve been trying to take everything in from a more holistic, “30,000 foot view“ lately… It’s part of why I haven’t commented in a couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to process all the information together over a period of time rather than getting caught up in the minutia of any one day.
My conclusion is:
For the hard data to be as good as it is, and the perception of the voters to be as bad as it is, it’s incredible that the Republican’s polling is as bad as it is (the attention is always on how dire Biden’s polling is, while conveniently forgetting to mention that Republicans have failed at every turn at every level to capitalize on it because they remain equally or more unpopular), and even more incredible how well Democrats have been performing in elections with the weakness of Biden’s polling.
The fact that we’re still in a tie-game at a time where more is being done to destroy people’s confidence, sense of stability, and general satisfaction with their public institutions than anytime since possibly the mid 19th century, and certainly since at least the late 1920s is a moral victory that we should not underestimate. I’m not a professional, political operative like Simon, but I’ve been paying attention to politics and how the public responds to macro events pretty carefully for 25 years, and there’s no way the public doesn’t have an improved perception of this kind of economic data over the next 3 to 6 months.
The indicators are simply too good, and the lag time for people truly starting to feel it should be no later than the spring or the summer. For Trump to already be near his ceiling of support in the polling is a catastrophic problem for the Republicans… We have 10 or 15 points worth of potential support to tap into, and not only the most demonstrably awful opponent to run against in American history, but with truly an amazing backdrop of accomplishments and conditions to help us make our positive case.
We have work to do, and none of us should feel complacent about it… But if we do it, I think we’re going to kick the shit out of these guys next year. If things change and 270 is all we can muster, I’ll take it… But we are going to have much more room to grapple with than they are. If we tap into all the good news that we honestly have to report, and do the effective job necessary of reminding people just who Trump is and what a bunch of dangerous, pathetic, and cowardly sycophants the entire Republican Party has become for him, it shouldn’t surprise us if we put Texas in Florida to play in addition to winning all of the battle grounds from last time and North Carolina. Let’s all pledge to do some work every month of 2024 and go out there and kick their asses guys… We can do it!
Well this comment has 25 yrs of wisdom and I am here for it! Thanks Steve. I easily pledge to donate or volunteer EVERY month til Biden clinches victory for America & the world.
December donation for NY and FL races done. Thanks Simon and Steve. Great post and comment!
Very well said ! You sound like you know what you're talking about. It never even occurred to me until last years midterms that bad actors were trying to destroy morale by flooding the airwaves with junk polls ( guess that's Bannon's old "flood the zone with shit" MO). But it in the end it does not matter a damn what dismal data gets thrown in our face - it's what we do about it. And your take on it is exactly why I ordered my postcards for the Dem candidate to replace Santos. That alone made me feel better. Thank you for your intuition & insight PianoManSteve, I think you're onto something !
Polls are fodder for News Entertainment. I stopped believing polls in 2016. Reading the polls has a deer in the headlights effect on the public. How about instead of polls for clickbait these papers lead with facts instead of sounding like something similar to a rape apologist for justifying the actions of predatory politicians.
I agree with 1000%! In the newsrooms they have to do better. Simon took it to Brian Stelter in his interview on how corporate media tower is failing the people by not scrutinizing and being more responsible about what is fact and what makes sense. They need to filter for bs, not broadcast it!
In their battleground poll in early November Trump led by 4 with registered voters and 3 with likelies. Here Trump leads by 2 with registered voters and Biden is up 2 with likelies. While it is not apples to apples as the the last NYT poll was battleground and not a national poll, these results are very good for Joe Biden, and it is not clear to me why they didn't include likely voters in the article about the poll. The LV numbers are being discussed and taken seriously in nerdy poll circles.
So, Simon, if you have any influence with the Dem machine and their bot-driven messaging in the hundreds of texts and emails I get every week screaming for money but providing no good reason to give them a penny, could you tell the little dears (bless their hearts) that playing the "The sky is falling!!!!!" meme in order to terrify Dem voters into giving them money not only doesn't work, it's counterproductive? I have decided to give them nothing until after the conventions because my trust and faith in the Dem machine's competence is so underwhelming as to be nonexistent. In addition, if you have any influence at the NY Times, NPR, and other "legitimate" news outlets, could you tell them to knock off the constant drum of both-side-ism in which some minor infraction or specific policy glitch--or the public's perception that their own personal economic situation is the fault of the President and not of their state legislators, their governor, their mayor, their local legislatures . . . --gets elevated to "The sky is falling!!!!" status in order to make a false equivalence between the Biden White House and the activities and statements of the appalling orange-colored menace that is Drumpf and his equally appalling handlers and family. Do I sound fed up? You bet I am. I vote--religiously--but I am not happy with what I see.
Actually Robert E Hubbell on substack recommends that we write to the media outlets like the NYT and WAPO and others and express how dissatisfied we are with all the negative spin on Biden when he has accomplished so much, and boosting trump will only lead to the demise of our democracy.
I'm furious about the junk emails the Dems are bombarding me with, I hate it, just negativity, whining, begging, pleading. Shut the hell up, stop emailing me and texting me multiple times a day telling me Biden is going to lose and time is running out and they're begging for me to do something. This is a perfect recipe for making their most devoted supporters tune out or give up.
Thank you ! Very much it is malpractice. Now admittedly I'm probably touchier/more sensitive than the average recipient but those apocalyptic emails have ruined days of mine before. Maybe it's just me but I feel like they're a LITTLE more restrained than they used to be. That said though you're absolutely right that despair does not inspire. I feel like Indivisible gets this more than the DNC & DCCC do. At the very least, it CANNOT be their only tactic otherwise as the headlines from one of their recurring text alerts always says "We're Screwed!" ( written by some staffer, but ostensibly by James Carville - gimme a break)
I had a thought this morning - their Project 25 is what used to be called the party platform? The comparison to what President Biden has done and wants to finish is so far opposite on the continuum we are stunned. Do the Democrats need their own version to show the comparison? Name it something other than “party platform” which seems archaic for these times.
Simon do you think Dems running in previous uncontested races (e.g. NC state house seats) will have a measurable effect on turnout for Biden? I can imagine there are lots of Dems in red districts who normally wouldn’t turn out but would be motivated by a good local candidate on their ballot and will hopefully check the box for Biden while they’re voting.
I am so sick of MSNBC these days. Today, they said a new NBC poll found younger voters prefer Trump to Biden. That is total malarky. They must not have polled younger women.
Yesterday in a FB group, someone asked if any of us had been polled in recent years, and if you did was it on a landline. I answered yes from back in 2018 and it was on a landline. I have not been polled on a cell phone. Only one man said he was polled on a cell phone. The rest of us mainly women over 50 have been polled, but that was on landlines. Who uses landlines anymore? The non-tech savvy elderly folks, which probably are Fox News MAGA viewers.
Someone else mentioned email polls. Is this a new thing? I've never been polled this way.
This is why I can't watch cable news by and large save for Thor hosts who are willing to actually talk reasonably ( your Melbers & your maddows ) because otherwise it's a total shit show with talking heads pouting over or fanning the flames of bullshit ( I'm looking at you morning Joe crew !)
Sandy more to your point I just got an email w the NYT evening briefing with that stupid poll - in all honesty I'll never believe that young voters will take Trump over Biden by any margin. To quote the classic 2007 movie Hot Fuzz " What absolute horseshit!"
Agree 100%. NYT, NBC, MSNBC are all at risk of losing viewers and subscribers due to reporting this crap-a-roo. They're causing needless distress and anxiety just like they did last year with the "Red Wave".
Hi Sandy… All reputable posters use cell phones now, but what they are finding is that even cell phones are not a great way to reach younger voters. The cross tabs have been revealing lately that you get a very different outcome in the data when the bulk of your responses from young people come from online surveys versus cell phone surveys… Which indicates that the portion of the younger electorate who leans more toward the right have a much greater tendency to answer a phone call from an unknown number, whereas the larger section which definitely leans to the left almost never will answer a phone call from an unknown number and let it go immediately to voicemail. The biggest problem with polling isn’t that it’s terrible, it’s that it’s difficult and very expensive. It’s much harder to get a response rate from large enough samples of all of the different groups to truly be representative at this point… in the old days when everybody had landline, and everybody was accustomed to answering the phone because it was the only way to know who was on the other side, it was much much easier to get a large representative sample of whatever your voter model was. It was also much less expensive. Not all polls are bad, but they are definitely not as consistently accurate and reliable as they once were, which is why you have to look at averages, and at the same time throw out polls from the average that come from organizations with questionable or sketchy methodology. In short, it’s very difficult to get a true sense of what’s going on by looking at polling alone, but the mainstream media is addicted to it, because it’s what they’ve always done, and they invest a lot of money in putting their own polls in the field, so they don’t want to discount the importance of polling by looking at a broader set of data because it would undermine one of the things that they budget a lot of money for… And it wouldn’t go well with the bean counters of the networks or the major newspapers to right on air say, “the poll says this, but a broader set of data undermines what the poll by itself is telling us.“ I hope this gives some clarity on this subject for you. It’s a very challenging time for posters, but some of them do it very well, in spite of all the headwinds.
Thank you so much. A good explanation of what is going on with polling. I'm guilty of not picking up calls from unknown callers. It makes sense to me. I'll share this information with our FB group.
"In the most troubled community, it’s a small number of people doing those things, and the core of many of the worst crime problems lie in various kinds of collectivities — gangs, drug crews, drug markets — rather than in individuals."
"Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America", p268
SO, Simon...what do you think of this news: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/colorado-disqualify-donald-trump-00132578. Can we celebrate and only think they will disqualify him in other estates???? I think every BLUE STATE should bring suit to take TFG off the ballot....that would be the best Christmas gift I could get!!!!
Re: NY Times reporting on its own poll, I think this is the first time I've *ever* seen a "liberal" media source emphasize their registered voter (and non-voter!) results instead of their "likely voter" tallies. Normally it's the reverse, which has had the effect of steadily normalizing more and more voter suppression. Where was all this concern with the opinions of non-voters in 2016 when they favored Hillary by 6 points and were overwhelmingly poor, young, black and/or brown? Ie the exact demos Republicans have been targeting for suppression for decades (and had the Russians do for them outside the consent decree that year)
I've been doing survey research in the tech and education sectors for 20+ years and not only are the Ns for the tabs they've chosen to emphasize too small to merit the level of attention they're given, but they don't "pass the laugh test" that would normally prevent their reporting.
That Kohn acknowledges this to some degree suggests he was pushed to apply the spin he did. Anyone who attended the protests at Bush's first Inauguration knows there's nothing really liberal about the Times, but are they really this desperate to get their cash cow back in office? I guess Lenin was right: a capitalist really will sell you the rope with which to hang him.
I think you hit the nail right on the head. It's so funny because my staunchly conservative late grandfather always used to call them "The New York Crimes". While it would be for VASTLY different reasons these days I'm tempted to call them that - especially when it becomes more obvious everyday they want that bastard back for eyes/subscriptions/clicks. Pathetic. We can't give them the satisfaction
Sorry for the very late response Jarrod--I've been following Simon "religiously" on email and X (anytime I need some of that hopium in my system, but completely forgot I had posted here!). Needless to say I couldn’t agree more--always great to connect with someone who sees the world through transparent glasses :)
Re polls, I think the most important factor for the election outcome is whether certain types of voters (esp black males and young people) in swing states either will not turn out or will vote for a third party candidate, and how many it will be. Polls really don't address that question, and it seems pretty hard to predict this far out anyway.
I’ve been trying to take everything in from a more holistic, “30,000 foot view“ lately… It’s part of why I haven’t commented in a couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to process all the information together over a period of time rather than getting caught up in the minutia of any one day.
My conclusion is:
For the hard data to be as good as it is, and the perception of the voters to be as bad as it is, it’s incredible that the Republican’s polling is as bad as it is (the attention is always on how dire Biden’s polling is, while conveniently forgetting to mention that Republicans have failed at every turn at every level to capitalize on it because they remain equally or more unpopular), and even more incredible how well Democrats have been performing in elections with the weakness of Biden’s polling.
The fact that we’re still in a tie-game at a time where more is being done to destroy people’s confidence, sense of stability, and general satisfaction with their public institutions than anytime since possibly the mid 19th century, and certainly since at least the late 1920s is a moral victory that we should not underestimate. I’m not a professional, political operative like Simon, but I’ve been paying attention to politics and how the public responds to macro events pretty carefully for 25 years, and there’s no way the public doesn’t have an improved perception of this kind of economic data over the next 3 to 6 months.
The indicators are simply too good, and the lag time for people truly starting to feel it should be no later than the spring or the summer. For Trump to already be near his ceiling of support in the polling is a catastrophic problem for the Republicans… We have 10 or 15 points worth of potential support to tap into, and not only the most demonstrably awful opponent to run against in American history, but with truly an amazing backdrop of accomplishments and conditions to help us make our positive case.
We have work to do, and none of us should feel complacent about it… But if we do it, I think we’re going to kick the shit out of these guys next year. If things change and 270 is all we can muster, I’ll take it… But we are going to have much more room to grapple with than they are. If we tap into all the good news that we honestly have to report, and do the effective job necessary of reminding people just who Trump is and what a bunch of dangerous, pathetic, and cowardly sycophants the entire Republican Party has become for him, it shouldn’t surprise us if we put Texas in Florida to play in addition to winning all of the battle grounds from last time and North Carolina. Let’s all pledge to do some work every month of 2024 and go out there and kick their asses guys… We can do it!
Well this comment has 25 yrs of wisdom and I am here for it! Thanks Steve. I easily pledge to donate or volunteer EVERY month til Biden clinches victory for America & the world.
December donation for NY and FL races done. Thanks Simon and Steve. Great post and comment!
Very well said ! You sound like you know what you're talking about. It never even occurred to me until last years midterms that bad actors were trying to destroy morale by flooding the airwaves with junk polls ( guess that's Bannon's old "flood the zone with shit" MO). But it in the end it does not matter a damn what dismal data gets thrown in our face - it's what we do about it. And your take on it is exactly why I ordered my postcards for the Dem candidate to replace Santos. That alone made me feel better. Thank you for your intuition & insight PianoManSteve, I think you're onto something !
Polls are fodder for News Entertainment. I stopped believing polls in 2016. Reading the polls has a deer in the headlights effect on the public. How about instead of polls for clickbait these papers lead with facts instead of sounding like something similar to a rape apologist for justifying the actions of predatory politicians.
I agree with 1000%! In the newsrooms they have to do better. Simon took it to Brian Stelter in his interview on how corporate media tower is failing the people by not scrutinizing and being more responsible about what is fact and what makes sense. They need to filter for bs, not broadcast it!
According to the NYT, Trump is up over Biden 46-44 among registered voters. Where is the Biden-Trump with Biden leading?
Maybe I am missing some details that are not being reported. They say Biden dropped two points since the last poll.
I despise these polls but I was hoping to see a positive one.
Was wondering that as well....
Can anyone provide clarification?
I don't know why the article about the poll didn't include Likely Voters but you can find it here - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/19/us/elections/times-siena-poll-likely-electorate-crosstabs.html and I've put a screenshot of it into my post online.
In their battleground poll in early November Trump led by 4 with registered voters and 3 with likelies. Here Trump leads by 2 with registered voters and Biden is up 2 with likelies. While it is not apples to apples as the the last NYT poll was battleground and not a national poll, these results are very good for Joe Biden, and it is not clear to me why they didn't include likely voters in the article about the poll. The LV numbers are being discussed and taken seriously in nerdy poll circles.
Thank you, Simon! I will write a comment on the NYT article. I am very unhappy with their articles lately.
Where do you get Biden dropped 2 since their last poll?
I believe that was reported in the article. It's possible I misread or misunderstood it.
Biden's job approval has dropped 2 points since July, now at 37%.
So, Simon, if you have any influence with the Dem machine and their bot-driven messaging in the hundreds of texts and emails I get every week screaming for money but providing no good reason to give them a penny, could you tell the little dears (bless their hearts) that playing the "The sky is falling!!!!!" meme in order to terrify Dem voters into giving them money not only doesn't work, it's counterproductive? I have decided to give them nothing until after the conventions because my trust and faith in the Dem machine's competence is so underwhelming as to be nonexistent. In addition, if you have any influence at the NY Times, NPR, and other "legitimate" news outlets, could you tell them to knock off the constant drum of both-side-ism in which some minor infraction or specific policy glitch--or the public's perception that their own personal economic situation is the fault of the President and not of their state legislators, their governor, their mayor, their local legislatures . . . --gets elevated to "The sky is falling!!!!" status in order to make a false equivalence between the Biden White House and the activities and statements of the appalling orange-colored menace that is Drumpf and his equally appalling handlers and family. Do I sound fed up? You bet I am. I vote--religiously--but I am not happy with what I see.
Totally agree
Actually Robert E Hubbell on substack recommends that we write to the media outlets like the NYT and WAPO and others and express how dissatisfied we are with all the negative spin on Biden when he has accomplished so much, and boosting trump will only lead to the demise of our democracy.
I'm furious about the junk emails the Dems are bombarding me with, I hate it, just negativity, whining, begging, pleading. Shut the hell up, stop emailing me and texting me multiple times a day telling me Biden is going to lose and time is running out and they're begging for me to do something. This is a perfect recipe for making their most devoted supporters tune out or give up.
Political malpractice.
Thank you ! Very much it is malpractice. Now admittedly I'm probably touchier/more sensitive than the average recipient but those apocalyptic emails have ruined days of mine before. Maybe it's just me but I feel like they're a LITTLE more restrained than they used to be. That said though you're absolutely right that despair does not inspire. I feel like Indivisible gets this more than the DNC & DCCC do. At the very least, it CANNOT be their only tactic otherwise as the headlines from one of their recurring text alerts always says "We're Screwed!" ( written by some staffer, but ostensibly by James Carville - gimme a break)
I had a thought this morning - their Project 25 is what used to be called the party platform? The comparison to what President Biden has done and wants to finish is so far opposite on the continuum we are stunned. Do the Democrats need their own version to show the comparison? Name it something other than “party platform” which seems archaic for these times.
My Indivisible groups is about to make donation recommendations to our members.
Any opinions about best places to donate?
Simon do you think Dems running in previous uncontested races (e.g. NC state house seats) will have a measurable effect on turnout for Biden? I can imagine there are lots of Dems in red districts who normally wouldn’t turn out but would be motivated by a good local candidate on their ballot and will hopefully check the box for Biden while they’re voting.
I am so sick of MSNBC these days. Today, they said a new NBC poll found younger voters prefer Trump to Biden. That is total malarky. They must not have polled younger women.
Yesterday in a FB group, someone asked if any of us had been polled in recent years, and if you did was it on a landline. I answered yes from back in 2018 and it was on a landline. I have not been polled on a cell phone. Only one man said he was polled on a cell phone. The rest of us mainly women over 50 have been polled, but that was on landlines. Who uses landlines anymore? The non-tech savvy elderly folks, which probably are Fox News MAGA viewers.
Someone else mentioned email polls. Is this a new thing? I've never been polled this way.
This is why I can't watch cable news by and large save for Thor hosts who are willing to actually talk reasonably ( your Melbers & your maddows ) because otherwise it's a total shit show with talking heads pouting over or fanning the flames of bullshit ( I'm looking at you morning Joe crew !)
I can't listen to Morning Joe show anymore. He's annoying and ruins my day.
Hell yeah - it almost sounds like they're paid to be a bunch of on air idiots
Sandy more to your point I just got an email w the NYT evening briefing with that stupid poll - in all honesty I'll never believe that young voters will take Trump over Biden by any margin. To quote the classic 2007 movie Hot Fuzz " What absolute horseshit!"
Agree 100%. NYT, NBC, MSNBC are all at risk of losing viewers and subscribers due to reporting this crap-a-roo. They're causing needless distress and anxiety just like they did last year with the "Red Wave".
Hi Sandy… All reputable posters use cell phones now, but what they are finding is that even cell phones are not a great way to reach younger voters. The cross tabs have been revealing lately that you get a very different outcome in the data when the bulk of your responses from young people come from online surveys versus cell phone surveys… Which indicates that the portion of the younger electorate who leans more toward the right have a much greater tendency to answer a phone call from an unknown number, whereas the larger section which definitely leans to the left almost never will answer a phone call from an unknown number and let it go immediately to voicemail. The biggest problem with polling isn’t that it’s terrible, it’s that it’s difficult and very expensive. It’s much harder to get a response rate from large enough samples of all of the different groups to truly be representative at this point… in the old days when everybody had landline, and everybody was accustomed to answering the phone because it was the only way to know who was on the other side, it was much much easier to get a large representative sample of whatever your voter model was. It was also much less expensive. Not all polls are bad, but they are definitely not as consistently accurate and reliable as they once were, which is why you have to look at averages, and at the same time throw out polls from the average that come from organizations with questionable or sketchy methodology. In short, it’s very difficult to get a true sense of what’s going on by looking at polling alone, but the mainstream media is addicted to it, because it’s what they’ve always done, and they invest a lot of money in putting their own polls in the field, so they don’t want to discount the importance of polling by looking at a broader set of data because it would undermine one of the things that they budget a lot of money for… And it wouldn’t go well with the bean counters of the networks or the major newspapers to right on air say, “the poll says this, but a broader set of data undermines what the poll by itself is telling us.“ I hope this gives some clarity on this subject for you. It’s a very challenging time for posters, but some of them do it very well, in spite of all the headwinds.
Thank you so much. A good explanation of what is going on with polling. I'm guilty of not picking up calls from unknown callers. It makes sense to me. I'll share this information with our FB group.
Used in 50+ cities to greatly reduce crime.
"In the most troubled community, it’s a small number of people doing those things, and the core of many of the worst crime problems lie in various kinds of collectivities — gangs, drug crews, drug markets — rather than in individuals."
"Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America", p268
SO, Simon...what do you think of this news: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/colorado-disqualify-donald-trump-00132578. Can we celebrate and only think they will disqualify him in other estates???? I think every BLUE STATE should bring suit to take TFG off the ballot....that would be the best Christmas gift I could get!!!!
Re: NY Times reporting on its own poll, I think this is the first time I've *ever* seen a "liberal" media source emphasize their registered voter (and non-voter!) results instead of their "likely voter" tallies. Normally it's the reverse, which has had the effect of steadily normalizing more and more voter suppression. Where was all this concern with the opinions of non-voters in 2016 when they favored Hillary by 6 points and were overwhelmingly poor, young, black and/or brown? Ie the exact demos Republicans have been targeting for suppression for decades (and had the Russians do for them outside the consent decree that year)
I've been doing survey research in the tech and education sectors for 20+ years and not only are the Ns for the tabs they've chosen to emphasize too small to merit the level of attention they're given, but they don't "pass the laugh test" that would normally prevent their reporting.
That Kohn acknowledges this to some degree suggests he was pushed to apply the spin he did. Anyone who attended the protests at Bush's first Inauguration knows there's nothing really liberal about the Times, but are they really this desperate to get their cash cow back in office? I guess Lenin was right: a capitalist really will sell you the rope with which to hang him.
I think you hit the nail right on the head. It's so funny because my staunchly conservative late grandfather always used to call them "The New York Crimes". While it would be for VASTLY different reasons these days I'm tempted to call them that - especially when it becomes more obvious everyday they want that bastard back for eyes/subscriptions/clicks. Pathetic. We can't give them the satisfaction
Sorry for the very late response Jarrod--I've been following Simon "religiously" on email and X (anytime I need some of that hopium in my system, but completely forgot I had posted here!). Needless to say I couldn’t agree more--always great to connect with someone who sees the world through transparent glasses :)
High five on the “red waver” typo, if it was a typo.
Happy holidays to all. "Merry Democracy and a Happy Blue Year!" - a NOPE Neighbors holiday greeting that we love!
Thank you Simon for your leadership and breaking down the silos ... together we are stronger and more effective.