Head scratcher

 

(3 minute read)

Head scratcher

            Okay, did not see that coming.  (Talking about the midterm vote.)  I’m pleasantly surprised as are any number of other people that are opposed to where MAGA Republicans are taking us.  BTW they have not given up.  There wasn’t any pleasant in their surprise. 

The headline that really caught my eye though came from the New York Post.[i]  The blistering article about Trump coined the name Trumpty Dumpty with an accompanying visual of an egg-shaped Trump on top of the wall.  It’s worth a read.  The author is NOT a friend of liberals. 

The Republican red wave that didn’t happen is going to be a hard one to spin even for the hard right media trolls.  They will though.  It’s going to be a tougher sell for those that didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. (I’m going to use Kool-Aid as a title for another post following along the lines of the previous sentence.)

What’s the haps, Man?

Kudos to the non-pollsters that got it right ahead of time.  People like Beau of the Fifth Column,[ii] Stonekettle Station (Jim Wright),[iii] and Meidas Touch,[iv] to list a few.  I’ve also mentioned that I follow Politics Girl because she’s so damn good at expressing what is taking place.[v]  The people that I have mentioned here are making a positive difference in life.

            Why were so many polls wrong though?  I’ll offer some ‘after the fact’ thoughts of mine on polls. 

            The problem that we have with polling is the polls.  Polls are as good as the people being polled.  Polls are as good as the people that are still answering their landline phone (can’t be that many left, can it?).  Some polls are better than others.  They do a better job of sampling.  Do you know anybody that has ever been polled?  I don’t.  Just curious.

            Then there are pollsters like 538.[vi]  They’re like the Nostradamus of pollsters except they don’t actually do any polling.  Confused?  538 aggregates polls and then averages them—mostly.  They always call the election right.  They also always call it wrong.  Okay, you’ve got me.  They don’t call it anything.  They give odds.  They are a bookie.[vii] 

In polling some polls are considered to be well done and others not so much.  You know, polls like Bob’s Bar Saturday night shots and beer poll.  If they get results different from what other polls are getting they’re called outliers.

The very nature of how polls are done and reported is directing or at least having an effect on the potential outcomes.  People can get to feeling defeated and skip voting because they don’t believe that their vote makes any difference, especially those that weren’t too worked up about voting in the first place.  Polls can make losers out of winners and vice versa.  The main thing to remember is polls can be GIGO.

Garbage in. Garbage out.

Polling is messaging

            Whether we like it or not polling affects a lot of people.  The best that can be done is to try and keep things in perspective.  It seems fairly obvious that the younger demographic was not being polled.  This is the 18 to 25 year old age grouping.  In many cases their parents are the answering their landline.  They made a difference in the election results that’s bigger than the plus or minus difference that Pollsters cite. 

They aren’t part of the landline crowd.

 

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[i] https://nypost.pressreader.com/article/281479280392856

[ii] Beau:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d22EomnrUYo

[iii] https://www.stonekettle.com/

[iv] https://www.meidastouch.com/

[v] Politics Girl:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0VTA6PQH7nKKgRO8ptMatQ

[vi] https://fivethirtyeight.com/politics/

[vii] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bookie