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Are issue polls as unreliable (or at least skewed) as candidate polls? How would we know?

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Hi Elliott,

While public opinion polls do play a vital role in our democracy, I wonder what kind of error they have. The Biden White House is emphasizing public opinion polls that show that 70-80% of voters agree with their agenda. This makes sense if the polling is correct, but what if people don't trust polls? Are these polls accurate? Maybe I'm missing something, but if these opinion polls were true, wouldn't Democrats get a much higher percent of the vote in national elections than they do now? If 70% of the American people support Biden's agenda, why don't Democrats win in landsides in elections? Perhaps there is a significant disconnect between supporting certain policies and voting a candidate who supports those policies?

My biggest criticism of polls is that the media fails to communicate uncertainty and the margin of error. How can the average person understand polls and trust polls again if they don't understand this? Restoring trust in government may be a key to fixing the polls.

Thanks,

Elliot

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There's also a lot of mutually contradictory statements in the MSM - for example, the majority of GOP voters are poorly educated, resentful, older white males, but the majority of the people who stormed the capitol were middle class and upper middle class young white males. Seems to me there are 4 necessary cures to the root causes. 1. The FCC needs to regulate cable and social media, so that Fox TV can't call its programs news. 2. Put a college in every community, including communities of undereducated people of all colors. 3. Reset the curricula of police academies. 4. Birth control. It will take 5 or 6 planets right now to give everyone the desired middle class lifestyle. Tell the public the truth.

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