I come to DU for facts and information. People should not be punished for posting facts

I try to base them on the best facts available, so the more information, the better.

I love getting information from DU

this is supposed to be a forum to exchange facts but also ideas and if one disagrees, one should be able to express the disagreement, to rebut and not to hit the alert link.

at this point they are pictures in times... some are indeed outliers, but you always have those. And they are just useful insofar as reflecting a trend.

They do not tell you much, beyond who has more or less name recognition at this point of the race.

Most Americans do NOT pay attention to politics 24\7, nor are they part of either major tribe, or the slew of internal ones. You said you were in Media, so you know this is not a strange thing to say, nor to affirm that they really start to matter 6 weeks before an election and are far more important 30 days out.

For the record, as MEDIA I use them as a indicator of who is catching and who is not. That is all the extent of their usefulness at this point (ergo who gets more attention in articles), and this goes for both parties.

Most people don't think about politics much at all, frankly. They vote, when they bother to, based on many factors, most of them unstudied and personal. That's the reality of elections.

quite off the record I was told by a couple that the usefulness of polls this far out is... just to tweak messages, if at all.

They chuckled that media (the beltway media) fixates on them as if they were gold. They are not. They both described it the same way I did... useful to know if their candidate is catching fire and as an exercise in name recognition. And I am sure that even if this was not your specialty, you must have heard this in a news room somewhere.

If they are virtually worthless, why aren't biased polls worthless too.

All polls have flaws. But polling is part and parcel of political campaigns. Sharing them on a political website shouldn't draw undue attacks on the person posting them.

Open Internet polls are the least worthwhile of all. As for the rest, I tend to look at past accuracy first, and then at the actual questions asked, if I'm still not sure.

There's little real information in an Internet poll, though. Selection of the polling sample is important if a poll is to reflect actual results. Internet polls are just records of random, unselected participants. Useless and very prone to being stuffed.

However, it's easy to compare polls with actual election results after the election. I use that criterion when considering the validity of polls that are forecasting future results.

The only poll that is accurate is the one on election day. Different polling companies do better or worse in predicting those results.

Polls predict, based on the information they gather. You can't verify what has not yet occurred.

and the questions asked during polling. That information is useful. Of course I cannot query the individuals who were polled. That information is not available.

It's a competitive industry. The legitimate polling firms are trying to produce accurate projections. Those who do get hired to do more polls than those who don't.

the individual contact #'s of the sample are essential, otherwise it's worthless (remember the internet polls).

"legitimate polling firms" Is there a Government agency that licenses these companies to insure and document that their procedures are legitimate.

What makes internal polls necessary?

those who were polled. Again, verification of a poll's accuracy can only occur after the event related to the projection. Another way of partially verifying polls is to compare polls on a subject taken by multiple polling companies. That's why polls are often reported as aggregate results by poll aggregators. I find those most useful, really.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ is one such aggregator, and many others also assemble groups of similar polls. Studying those makes the outliers pretty obvious.

licenses, legitimizes and oversees pollsters?

and do not follow statistical rules... nor do they have margin of errors. It is math, statistics to be specific.

It is truly a science how they do it, and the rules of statistics they use, are also used in medical research.

consider playing a slot machine with a 92% payback versus one with a 97% payback.

Does anyone really think the 97% machine will leave them with more in their pocket than the 92% one? Generally the lever will be pulled until the money is gone. The purpose of the machine is for the good of its owner, whether its payout polls at 92 or 97.

Sure, polls can be informative, though how much so at this stage is highly debatable. The trouble is that you know as well as I that some folks post polls merely to tweak the nose of those they deem their "enemies" (!) here.

It's akin to trash talking during a basketball game where one player turns to another in the first quarter and says "check the scoreboard asshole". Sure, there might be something to be gleaned by doing so but that isn't the reason he is calling attention to it. It's an attempt to demoralize, to insult the other player, and thereby gain advantage.

To be certain, not everyone who posts a poll has such a purpose in mind, likely not even a majority, but it can and does occur frequently. I don't know but do suspect that one such incident is what led to this OP.

That is stretching the sports metaphor a tad, don't you think? In sports trash talking could effect the outcome by demoralizing the opposing team. In politics - not so much. And if it is indeed trash talk, I see both "sides" doing it. Sanders supporters post polls, Clinton supporters post polls. And it is okay that they do.

I rarely look at polls and when I do, I don't pay much attention to them. Others are far more interested and that's OK with me so I won't criticize them.

Karl Rove, the criminal, fixed that election I think.

So polls have mixed meanings to me.


I didnt see the thread that this thread came from, but polls can be used to give people an incorrect feeling of where candidates stand and are often done for that purpose by righty.

But to say polls arent allowed here, that would be stupid

Of course polls can be skewed by the poll creator. Such polls usually end up being inaccurate in their projections, though. I rate polling companies by their past accuracy. It's the only real way to rate polling companies.

Trying to use them to demoralize supporters of other candidates?

Pretty damn low.

is seen as trying to use them to demoralize, it seems to me.

Poll results are news. I don't post poll results, but I look at them when posted for the raw information they represent.

Should the relevance and/or motive behind a post be subject to criticism? Is that fair criticism or does it cross a boundary into criticism of the poster?

based on other factors than what is posted. Even a simple post of information can often be interpreted wrongly due to that.

It's most common with prolific posters. People often think they know exactly where those posters stand. They're often wrong about that, too.

Informational?

Not so much.

someone doesn't like. Without examining the sampling method, size, and structure of the questions, it's impossible to tell.

Personally, I disregard all polls paid for by candidates or parties. I also don't pay much attention to polls funded by Fox News.

There are legitimate polling firms doing legitimate polling. They have good records at projecting eventual results. Those are the ones I watch most closely. But I don't post polls, as a rule.

Push polls are designed to steer opinion towards a predetermined result. Exactly as the bullshit one this morning that was meant to slam socialism.

Tools for fools.

For posting poll results. It's way too early for anyone with a brain to take these polls seriously.

Anyone who takes them seriously should be ridiculed without mercy.

Your opinion might differ.

A poll can say what current thinking is.

Do you imagine that no campaign is paying any attention to any polls yet?

I worked in two national campaigns, Kerry '04 and Obama '08.

In the primary, position polls were tossed out the window until 6 weeks out. They were totally meaningless.

National polls weren't even considered to be worth the paper they were written on. A candidate can claim 90% in the polls, but if that 90% is in the wrong 39 states, you're screwed.

The only polls that mattered were policy polls.

or some other notoriously right-leaning pollster.

I automatically discount Rassie polling and I do not mind looking at rassie polls just to know what is out there

I don't think that will be necessary.

about.

things about the validity or reliability of the poll or of polls in general without getting personally attacked, too.

priceless.

Polls, at this point, are of very limited value.

One of my biggest complaints about the corporate media is their election coverage focuses on the "horse race" and the personalities involved, rather than the ideas being articulated by candidates about critically important issues.