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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHearing What You Want to Hear and Disregarding the Rest
I'm as guilty as the next person of doing that. This year, it was the constant polling before the election that I disregarded. Report after report said that the polls showed a tie, or at least a very close race. "That can't be true," I thought. I said as much here, too.
Well Paul Simon brought that all up in "The Boxer," didn't he? I disregarded those polls, because they weren't what I wanted to hear. We all did, it seems.
Maybe we should take a better look next time and adjust our expectations and strategies.

True Dough
(21,660 posts)I'm very good at this: Hearing What You Want to Hear and Disregarding the Rest
I thank her for the compliment and move on.
Think. Again.
(21,382 posts)...as you mentioned, a lot of the polls were pushing the "virtual tie" or "close race" narrative, and yet trump is said to have won by a margin greater than what would initiate recounts.
yardwork
(65,395 posts)He won by small amounts in swing states. The polls showed that there was about an equal chance that each candidate would win that way.
Think. Again.
(21,382 posts)Perfect.
yardwork
(65,395 posts)
underpants
(188,475 posts)Other than W&Co completely collapsing and a perfect candidate and campaign with Obama every POTUS election has been very close and will be for the foreseeable future.
Trump got a lot of joke votes and benefitted from apathy in 2016. He had a coordinated media effort to keep him in the race in 2024.
dalton99a
(86,188 posts)regarding the issues of immigration and inflation, and the electoral chances of a black woman in the age of Trump
Septua
(2,707 posts)I keep hearing explanations for Harris losing was due to ineffective or the wrong "messaging", one being she didn't talk about the kitchen table issues. She didn't talk a lot about the border but always talked about "inflation" and plans to help those of us suffering from pricing.
I had no illusions about the polls suggesting anything but a close race. I knew Trump could win but didn't think Harris could lose so badly. What we saw was about the same number of votes that Trump received in 2020 and some unknown number of voters who didn't vote.
I strongly believe the loss was at least partly due to Kamala being a Black WOMAN.
dalton99a
(86,188 posts)Elessar Zappa
(16,295 posts)This was a close race.
DeepWinter
(803 posts)to reign in your bias. And as your emotions ramp up, your bias ramps up too.
The polls were showing a tight race. Many didn't want to believe it. They outright denied it. "Trash polls."
DNC polls showed a tight race. Didn't want to believe it. Just a rumor.
Biden/Harris inside polling showing a tight race. That just can't be real.
The reality hits and it's real.
Post-mortem , there are people STILL not believing it is real. It was stolen. Hacked. Clearly rigged.
Alcoholics have 101 reasons they tell themselves they don't have a problem.
Strong political bias will have 101 reasons what happened was because of _________________, because only my side clearly should win.
Fact of the matter is we have an incredibly diverse nation. Diverse in thought, opinion, beliefs, ideology. Getting enough people to agree on a pretty generalized political platform and win a simple majority isn't as easy as you would think it should be. Getting 100 people to agree on one idea isn't that hard. To agree on 5 ideas, you start losing people. To agree on 20 ideas, you lose a lot. 100 ideas, you're probably down to one person who's making the list.
We need to tighten up our core messaging, because as we expand out, we lose people. Just my personal experience and opinion.
yardwork
(65,395 posts)Harris ran a very tightly messaged campaign, focused on the economy. Watch her acceptance speech.
The MSM and the deeply-rooted misinformation machine twists everything. I'm not sure what we can do to combat it. Too many people believe lies.
yardwork
(65,395 posts)The polls showed that the race was, essentially, tied. It could have gone either way.
A few hundred thousand more votes in three swing states and Harris would be our president.
I thought we'd get those votes, and I was wrong.
Progressive dog
(7,342 posts)that the polls could be right. After the election I realized how many Americans still refuse to vote for women and minorities, even when they are obviously far superior in intelligence, ethics, and decency to their white male opponents.
dalton99a
(86,188 posts)Prairie Gates
(4,014 posts)Nobody responded positively or negatively to those posts. Which is fine.
In the "How are you feeling?" poll, I responded "Pessimistic: Things are bad" (I think that was the option). The Trumpies on my socials were very pumped up in the weeks leading in. Harris had an insurmountable challenge, really - a hundred days to overcome many structural disadvantages. She went about it admirably, but I don't think it was ever going to be enough.
Jersey Devil
(10,374 posts)We wanted it so bad that we didn't want to discourage others from fighting on. Personally, I knew the polls were not good but held onto the hope she would pull out PA, Mich and Wisc.
But the fighter still remains. We will be there for the next fight, hopefully a little wiser and a little better.
andym
(5,834 posts)He basically got blamed for the price increases, especially on food and housing that were the after effects of Covid. The Fed's actions to raise interest rates to quash inflation made life difficult for those holding CC debt. These economic conditions made life difficult for many and others who could bear them were not happy about paying more. Historically, these conditions are very bad for the President or party in power: Jimmy Carter (1980) and George HW Bush (1992-2nd term election) come to mind-- Clinton beat Bush with "I feel your (economic) pain." The actual health of the economy mattered less.
Given that Joe was getting the blame for the cost-of-living and both prices and interest rates were lower under Trump, Democrats had their work cut out for them. Joe probably could not have won even if he had performed better in the debate because of his favorability. Whoever got the nomination would have had to carve out a vision/economic policies that made them the "change" candidate. Unfortunately it is very difficult for a sitting VP to do that, so Kamala would have had to propose really bold if not controversial policies (no matter that they might not get implemented), but that is not what happened.
Elessar Zappa
(16,295 posts)After the election, I evaluated my media intake and came to the conclusion that I was in a bubble and believing common knowledge of the place without adequate fact checking.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)Despite the excitement and enthusiasm and donations and endorsements and voting registrations and early turnout and curb stomping Donnie during the debate and being universally superior to Donnie on every hot button issue except for MAYBE immigration and actually being able to speak and think coherently, at the end of the day there was no way in HELL a sufficient number of white Dems were going to ever vote for a black woman... I've been played like a fucking mark by the pundits, pollsters and voters, but lesson learned.
MineralMan
(148,432 posts)he won. There are many possibilities. I think it's possible it was because Kamala is a black woman, but I'm not in any way certain that was why. You may be, but I am not. I do not know why, nor am I pretending to know.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)1. Racism/sexism...
2. An absolute tidal wave of disinfo that Dems were unable to overcome with truth and facts...
3. Americans (Especially American men) naturally love to cheer for a stupidly comedic, amoral, bull-headed bad-boy antihero (SEE: Bart Simpson and a thousand other pop culture examples the last 100 years)
...And it's no more complicated than those three. I could never guess the exact ratio of these three factors, but they all played a part and you need look no further.
MineralMan
(148,432 posts)I don't claim to know why. After being involved in political campaigns since 1960, I'm familiar with the process. It still puzzles me at times, though, as I try to understand why someone won and someone lost.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)We're looking at this with very different eyes.