The House GOP just gave Biden’s campaign a huge gift
www.vox.com
Roughly 80 percent of House Republicans just lined up behind a plan to cut Social Security and ban all abortions.

Donald Trump would be on track to win a historic landslide in November — if so many US voters didn’t find him personally repugnant.

Roughly 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the former president. And yet, when asked about Trump’s ability to handle key issues — or the impact of his policies — voters routinely give the Republican candidate higher marks than President Biden.

In a YouGov survey released this month, Trump boasted an advantage over Biden on 10 of the 15 issues polled. On the three issues that voters routinely name as top priorities — the economy, immigration, and inflation — respondents said that Trump would do a better job by double-digit margins.

Meanwhile, in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 40 percent of voters said that Trump’s policies had helped them personally, while just 18 percent said the same of Biden. If Americans could elect a normal human being with Trump’s reputation for being “tough” on immigration and good at economics, they would almost certainly do so.

Biden is fortunate that voters do not have that option. But to erase Trump’s small but stubborn lead in the polls, the president needs to erode his GOP rival’s advantage on the issues.

    • mwguy@infosec.pub
      1·
      8 months ago

      Did you read that article? Their first example of a polling “miss”:

      The average poll in the week before election day had Mehmet Oz beating John Fetterman by nearly 1% in Pennsylvania when in reality Fetterman beat Oz by nearly 5%

      Pollsters were actually calling that race a toss up (also 538’s page ). There were several polls that predicted a slim Oz and several that predicted a slim Fetterman. Even the Republican leading pollster that was predicting a 1% the wrong way has a confidence interval of +/- 2.5 and had 4.9% other/undecided factor in the poll.

      People are angry that they can’t read polls. They’re angry that a toss up is just that.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        8 months ago

        Did you read it? It goes on to describe larger polling errors(14%) that resulted consistently in multiple elections going the opposite way of the polls.

        Polls are consistently inaccurate.

        You can read the whole article instead of the first sentence.

        • mwguy@infosec.pub
          1·
          8 months ago

          The Siena poll found that “independents, especially women, are swinging to the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights. …The biggest shift came from women who identified as independent voters. In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, independent women backed Republicans by 18 points–a striking swing given the polarization of the American electorate and how intensely Democrats have focused on that group and on the threat Republicans pose to abortion rights.”

          This is the chunk you’re complaining about? They didn’t even refute the poll they just don’t like that data. And that’s after consistently complaining about polls that were marked as toss-ups.

          Like please respond to the first one. Because the polls got Oz vs. Fetterman largely correct and it’s the first example of a miss which should be the strongest one.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            8 months ago

            No, it isn’t, and i responded to your first reply four days ago when you originally replied.

            If you are expecting every single pull to be inconsistent by the exact same amount, you’re going to be disappointed.

            Some polls are off by 1% some are off by 15% some are off by more.

            They’re not all from identical elections, and there’s not always an identical number of people voting or people being polled.

            Polls are consistently inaccurate,is the point here.

            • mwguy@infosec.pub
              1·
              8 months ago

              If a pill has a ± of 5-7 percent with 90% confidence. And you have ten polls, You would expect at least one to be off by more that 5-7%. What your describing is expected.

              • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
                0·
                8 months ago

                Right, polls are consistently inaccurate and should not be counted on as foundational predictors of political conclusions.

                • mwguy@infosec.pub
                  1·
                  8 months ago

                  If I tell you that a rocket is going to land withing a 20ft circle 90% of the time and land 9 rockets in the circle and 1 out of it; was I accurate or inaccurate in your mind?

                  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
                    0·
                    8 months ago

                    Consistently inaccurate.

                    At least 10 percent of the time the rocket will consistently land inaccurately.

                    Further, if we more accurately pair your analogy with political polls determining an accurate election result, the rocket will consistently land inaccurately the other 90% of the time as well.