Pay little attention to Politic Polls;
It used to be that we believed the media because we thought they were credible; now, the media think they are credible because we believe them. Interesting indeed.
First, the media/press were all for Pete Buttigieg after he won the, as of late, insignificant Iowa caucus. (When I say insignificance, I do not mean the Iowan people but rather the Iowa caucus) Since 1972, there has only been 3 Iowa contested winners that became president; Barack Obama, George W. Bush, & Jimmy Carter. 15 others that won the contested Iowa caucus didn’t win the general election. That means approximately 16.6% of the time, the person that wins Iowa becomes president. Moreover, only 55.4% that win Iowa wins their party’s nomination.
Given such low results, it begs the question, why prop up the winner of the Iowa caucus? Perhaps because it the first caucus/primary???
After the Iowa caucus, Bernie won New Hampshire and Nevada. As a result, some in the media were practically crowning Bernie and saying Joe Biden was practically done. “The press is ready to declare people dead quickly, but we’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re gonna win,” Biden told supporters.
Some in the media act like they can or even should try to predict the outcome of polls. Don’t be fooled by their so called “expert pollsters.” Polls are not evidence of anything but what is happening or what people are feeling at that precise moment.
This is one example of how inaccurate polls are over just a few days.
On Thursday February 27, 2020 “(CNN – reports) “Bernie Sanders just might win the South Carolina primary on Saturday..”.
“That’s the real headline out of a new poll conducted by NBC and Marist College that shows Sanders trailing longtime South Carolina front-runner Joe Biden by a narrow 27% to 23% margin, with five days of campaigning remaining. (Several recent polls have suggested a similar tightening.)”
It should be noted, Joe beat Bernie in Alabama by a much wider margin than even the poll suggested. The actual results from Alabama were:
Joe Biden 63.2% 40 delegates 286,065
Bernie Sanders 16.6% 7 delegates 74,888
So, five days before Alabamans voted, the poll above reads Biden was leading 27% to 23%; but he actually won by 63.2% to 16.6%.
The media were so wrong and inaccurate with their reporting/polls because Joe came back. Also, Biden beat Sanders by a wider margin on Super Tuesday than polls lead us to believe and now he has the lead. These same media players are now saying Joe has the momentum and will be hard to beat. Of course, the media never admits they were wrong or their polling experts were incorrect.
Sidebar:
- Should not the media just report the results without pretending to know what voters will or won’t do once they step into polling place?
- Did we not have that same inaccurate reporting with Trump & Hillary?
- Have the media even learned a lesson from what polls may read vs what people actually will do?
- Why must they interpret and/or predict the results in a particular slant??
Bill Schneider from George Mason University says,
“Polls are not designed to be predictive. You’ve heard this before: polls are a snapshot of the way people feel at that particular moment. Things can change. They often do.”
Now Tru Talk:
- Don’t listen to the media/press about a particular poll or polls. VOTE anyway!!
- If your candidate is up or down in the polls, VOTE anyway!!
- Voting is an essential part of our democracy. VOTE!!!
- Media/press stop trying to predict what polls may or may not mean.
- Media/press, when your expert pollsters get it wrong, admit the inaccuracy with the same vigor you reported the prediction.
- Don’t let the media/press stop you from voting. VOTE!!!
“It’s not opinion polls that determine the outcome of elections, it’s votes in ballot boxes.” Nicola Sturgeon
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