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Why the "Political Polls are rigged" mantra is wrong and dangerous [1]

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Date: 2023-11-08  

It appears to be an article of faith among many that "the media" (not just Fox News and the like) are biased against Democrats. It is also an article of faith that said media is releasing Biased or fake polls to shift voter opinions away from Democratic candidates.



The problem with these assumptions is that "the media" doesn't do polling. They hire commercial market research firms to do it for him. While there are certainly polling firms that go into the business with a political bias, most do this as part of a broader business and have other, non-political clients (Coca Cola, General Motors, Delta Airlines etc.) To get that business (which is a much more substantial part of their business than high-profile political polls), they have to be seen as accurate and objective in their data collection.



There's also another category of polls: Universities (Quinnipiac, Monmouth, Siena, Emerson, Marist). These are from academic market research programs that using poll preparation and data analysis as teaching tools. As with corporate pollsters, there's little value in carrying out polls that are intentionally biased.



The followup response tend to be: “Well, polls can’t be accurate because people don’t answer their phones”. Again, we’re talking about professional market research firms. They’re aware of the demographic changes and will find ways to compensate for it or...get out of the market research business. I’ll point out that the Biden campaign and pretty much every candidate you care about DOES do polling and finds value in the results.

The reason discounting polls out of hand is dangerous is that developing good political strategy depends on objectively analyzing available data. Almost every poll says the national political choice (yes, not applicable State by State, but there's no data suggesting the races in WI, MI, PA etc are significantly different) is a matter of single digits. I can also say that the Biden campaign has told me pretty much the same thing. Can that change over a year? Of course. But to discount that data now is to say that you believe the race ISN'T close and that either Biden or Trump is comfortably ahead. Either assumption will skew your political behavior to the detriment of the camapaign.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/8/2204503/-Why-the-Political-Polls-are-rigged-mantra-is-wrong-and-dangerous?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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