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  Ignore the Polls
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ContributorMr. Politics 
Last EditedMr. Politics  Oct 14, 2024 11:15am
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CategoryCommentary
AuthorEzra Klein
News DateMonday, October 14, 2024 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionHere’s a bit of advice to help maintain your sanity over the next few weeks until Election Day: Just ignore the polls. Unless you’re a campaign professional or a gambler, you’re probably looking at them for the same reason the rest of us are: to know who’ll win. Or at least to feel like you know who’ll win. But they just can’t tell you that.

You could imagine a world in which these errors are random and cancel one another out. Perhaps Donald Trump’s support is undercounted by three points in Michigan but overcounted by three points in Wisconsin. But errors often systematically favor one candidate or the other. In both 2016 and 2020, for instance, state-level polls tended to undercount Trump supporters. The polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s margin by three points in 2016 and Joe Biden’s margin by 4.3 points in 2020.
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DISCUSSION
 
D:1989RBH ( 5686.1743 points)
x2
Mon, October 14, 2024 11:02:35 PM UTC0:00
I prefer to just ignore national polling

 
D:1RP ( 5618.8218 points)
Mon, October 14, 2024 11:09:44 PM UTC0:00
CA Pol Junkie: People are not going to change who they are voting for at this point. It's all about turnout, and the pollsters are basically guessing about that.

I think you'd be surprised that there's a group of people who don't really pay attention to politics and then make up their mind just days before voting or even on the day.

 
D:7CA Pol Junkie ( 5444.7002 points)
Mon, October 14, 2024 11:44:44 PM UTC0:00
RP: I think you'd be surprised that there's a group of people who don't really pay attention to politics and then make up their mind just days before voting or even on the day.

I think the number of such voters is much less this year since Trump is such a known quantity. Everything I am reading is that there are far more irregular voters than truly undecided voters.

 
D:10973Patrick ( 6.5582 points)
x3
Wed, October 16, 2024 03:30:21 AM UTC0:00
it's also annoying how those bandwagon voters need a reason to vote, unlike Republicans who will vote for anything as long as it is Republican and says they have read the bible. Childish things like public policy don't matter to Republicans whereas Democrat seem to think this actually matters in government.

 
LIB:6149Campari_007 ( 1501.1602 points)
Fri, October 18, 2024 07:08:09 PM UTC0:00
I'm not worried. Trump has been flailing the last few days. He's cancelled a ton of interviews. He's slurring his words. Probably sundowning as well. He's exhausted and doesn't have the stamina to get through the end of this.