The press has learned that "engagement" is the only way for them to survive. The problem is that they are generating a false narrative to attract more viewers. Basically, it's become clickbait. They refuse to show all the information because then voters would see it and stop viewing them daily.

I learned the hard way to be skeptical about the predictive power of public opinion polls.

I remember election night 2016 all too well, as I hit delete on my partially pre-written Washington Post column and instead tried to look into the future of a Trump presidency. It was a future that wasn’t supposed to happen

Polls weren't wrong...

It's just way too many people who call themselves "political experts" only looked at popular vote polls because they're lazy and don't know what they're doing. If they did look at state polls, they had no idea what magin of error means, and people learn that in highschool math without ever taking a stats class.

The 2016 election results were literally in range of predictions for 2016.

Clinton was never a sure thing, but journalists like the one who wrote this article just kept screeching at anyone trying to explain that to them.

Just like this same journalist is still doing 8 years later when people say Biden isn't popular.

They haven't learned a fucking thing. And they never will.

It’s also a failure of people not understanding that polls are garbage.

The methodology and sampling of polls needs to be scrutinized. The NYT poll from a while back showing Trump +3-4% was incredibly sus. It had a very large rural presence in the sample, and the poll itself suggested that women were split 50/50 on Trump. Given how races have gone post Dobbs, that feels highly unrealistic.

Polls are only as good as their methodology. Frankly, I think many aren't representative. We shouldn't be complacent about things, but I think we are flying blind.

I’m starting to feel like if that many people want him, then they fucking deserve him

Green line go up became a meme 20 years ago when Bush tried to take a victory lap on low inflation and stock increases.

Stop using indicators that don't matter to the average American. Those are measurements for economists to look at the top level picture, not for measuring the standard of living for the majority of Americans.

Oh good another economist swearing things are good because they’re using 2022 as a reference (@ that dumb thanksgiving anecdote). It baffles me that they’re baffled.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/

'polls can't predict' ??? its their chief function.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

I remember election night 2016 all too well, as I hit delete on my partially pre-written Washington Post column and instead tried to look into the future of a Trump presidency.

Given that searing memory, I reacted to the recent much-trumpeted Wall Street Journal poll about the 2024 presidential race with, well, not exactly a shrug, but not a primal scream either.

That was the poll that said Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in six of seven crucial battleground states, the very ones most likely to determine who gets elected in November.

The former president is ahead, according to the Journal’s poll, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina; the two candidates are tied in Wisconsin.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate economist, wrote recently: “The economic news in 2023 was almost miraculously good.” (Even the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner, he notes, was down 4.5% last year.)

And I do take seriously the analysis by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, who looked at the Journal poll and several others, comparing them with earlier ones, and concluding that Biden is making slow, uneven progress.

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