Obviously no chance to read the book before commenting but I guess I'm still at "ignore the polls" (since I'm hopelessly unable to interpret them myself), not because they are right or wrong necessarily.
I didn't follow you closely until after 2020, so I'm curious if you can say your methods (which sound like diving into the details) are superior to the "aggregators" that are getting attention now (averaging results across polls with weighting for poll "quality").
You are asking all the right questions, JB. Frustratingly in my research, those questions are not allowed to be asked in the field as it stands. The poll averages by FiveThirtyEight are considered the gold standard for what "the polls" say - despite there being no objective standard for it.
Thank you for including these excerpts! My main question is if polls are not predictive of outcomes then what is their purpose? I am admittedly a novice in this so excuse my ignorance if you have explained this. Also, I hate polls lol
Absolutely, one of my most vivid memories of October-November 2020 is late nights with the Lincoln Project videos explaining how the vote count would start out favoring Trump, but not to panic because the results would shift as the many mail-in ballots and urban votes were counted. This calm, objective analysis is what brought me back to your twitter (not that I ever stopped reading it completely) and to the Great Transformation. Of course, I know you would be equally frank if the trend was in the opposite direction.
It has been fascinating to get this glimpse of how campaigns and polling work. But the best thing is I've learned so much more about our times and our country from the Great Transformation, and I know I will learn much more about this pivotal point in US history when get to The Latino Century in the "to read" stack. Thanks so much for all you do, Mike!
Back when Joe was still the nominee you were saying that he would underperform in polls but overperform on voting days. Vice versa for Trump. Is that still applicable in the current context?
Whoa! Thanks for the kind words Mike.
Obviously no chance to read the book before commenting but I guess I'm still at "ignore the polls" (since I'm hopelessly unable to interpret them myself), not because they are right or wrong necessarily.
I didn't follow you closely until after 2020, so I'm curious if you can say your methods (which sound like diving into the details) are superior to the "aggregators" that are getting attention now (averaging results across polls with weighting for poll "quality").
You are asking all the right questions, JB. Frustratingly in my research, those questions are not allowed to be asked in the field as it stands. The poll averages by FiveThirtyEight are considered the gold standard for what "the polls" say - despite there being no objective standard for it.
So, if we took a picture of you now, would it look the same?
Thank you for including these excerpts! My main question is if polls are not predictive of outcomes then what is their purpose? I am admittedly a novice in this so excuse my ignorance if you have explained this. Also, I hate polls lol
Absolutely, one of my most vivid memories of October-November 2020 is late nights with the Lincoln Project videos explaining how the vote count would start out favoring Trump, but not to panic because the results would shift as the many mail-in ballots and urban votes were counted. This calm, objective analysis is what brought me back to your twitter (not that I ever stopped reading it completely) and to the Great Transformation. Of course, I know you would be equally frank if the trend was in the opposite direction.
It has been fascinating to get this glimpse of how campaigns and polling work. But the best thing is I've learned so much more about our times and our country from the Great Transformation, and I know I will learn much more about this pivotal point in US history when get to The Latino Century in the "to read" stack. Thanks so much for all you do, Mike!
Back when Joe was still the nominee you were saying that he would underperform in polls but overperform on voting days. Vice versa for Trump. Is that still applicable in the current context?