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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBiden Is Likely Better Off Than the Polls Suggest
Fareed Zakaria suggested on CNN over the weekend that Donald Trumps strength in the election may be even stronger than recent polls suggest because they have tended to underestimate Donald Trumps support, not overestimate it.
He added: I doubt that there are many shy Biden voters in the country.
But what Zakaria misses is that theres not much evidence of shy Trump voters either. Research from Yale and from Pew Research found little to no evidence in support of the theory.
If anything, polls actually tend to favor challengers because its an easy way to register general displeasure at the expense of the incumbent president.
In 2012, former President Obama led Mitt Romney by less than a point in national polls, but he ended up winning the popular vote by 4 points.
In 2020, most polls overstated challenger Joe Bidens national lead over Trump and the election ended up closer than many expected.
The current FiveThirtyEight polling average shows Trump ahead of Biden nationally by just .9%.
But if the past is any indication, Biden may be better off than the polls currently suggest.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/05/13/biden-is-likely-better-off-than-the-polls-suggest/
kimbutgar
(21,357 posts)They are not reaching supporters of President Biden because we dont need to wear clothing or put bumper stickers on our cars supporting him.
SWBTATTReg
(22,395 posts)you can't trust these outlets anymore for representative news (they want only their news) and they also falsely portray polls and their results in various ways, via their comments, their skewing of the sampling base used to obtain the poll results, e.g., 80% republican, vs. 20 % democratic like one poll did. As for me, I don't respond to ANY poll or the like, as I can't really guarantee that my results will be fairly represented.
RandySF
(60,599 posts)NoMoreRepugs
(9,579 posts)JohnSJ
(92,618 posts)Zakarias assessment is wrong also for the simple fact that trying to extrapolate this with what happened in 2016 Is nonsense because it ignores what happened 11 days before the 2016 general election. Hillary was leading in all polls before Comey sent a letter to the republicans in Congress saying they were trying to determine if this was new information, and the media immediately misrepresented that and falsely said the email investigation had been reopened, followed by parading every right wing pundit across various outlets perpetuating that lie. It was only late Friday, the weekend before the general election, that Comey quietly came out and said there was no additional information to reopen the email investigation.
The damage had been done by that time, and the lead Hillary had was completely erased.
wryter2000
(46,236 posts)Polls haven't been right for years. And bear in mind, all approval ratings are polls.
The only predictor we have now is real behavior in the form of how people have voted in elections, and all of those point to over-performance by Democrats. I'm ignoring "the polls."
lees1975
(3,984 posts)And he was "ahead" in all of the important swing states. I remember 538 scrambling, just a week before the election, to try and reverse their predictions and numbers as a couple of the bigger, more accurate polls started showing less tightening, and more votes heading toward Obama.
Poiuyt
(18,142 posts)I saw the Fareed Zakaria spot yesterday and became very depressed. I have a lot of respect for Zakaria.
louis-t
(23,333 posts)He lost a lot of Republican congressional vote. I can't imagine that he gained any Dem voters. He lost by almost 8 million votes last time. How could he even be in contention?
MadameButterfly
(1,153 posts)Trump overperformed dramatically in both of his elections.
Polls have a better track record that we give them credit for. Hillary was 3% ahead in May and for most of the campaign, winning by 3%, just not distributed to win the electoral college.
Hey, I want to feel better too but I don't think we change things by pretending. We need to face the situation we are in and do something about it.