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.
There is a substantive point to be made here, too: I would guess that, at most, the average biases in polls of Biden's infrastructure plan is around 5 percentage points. If the government is trying to represent the people, then they should pass the bill either way (IE if it's approval is 70 v 75, or 75 v 80) percent.
The second-order question, on why Democrats don't win landslides even though their policy proposals are very popular, has more to do with voter psychology than anything else. The non-college whites and other Republicans who favor Biden's bills are motivated by other factors than social spending when they go to the voting booth.
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.
Are issue polls as unreliable (or at least skewed) as candidate polls? How would we know?
Pew has done a study on this and fount that even the most biased polls on the horse race have much smaller biases on the issues: https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2021/03/02/what-2020s-election-poll-errors-tell-us-about-the-accuracy-of-issue-polling/
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
Hi Elliot:
I guess I'll have to write a(nother) post about this, but the biases in issue polling are on average pretty small, though they are relatively hard to measure. https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2021/03/02/what-2020s-election-poll-errors-tell-us-about-the-accuracy-of-issue-polling/
There is a substantive point to be made here, too: I would guess that, at most, the average biases in polls of Biden's infrastructure plan is around 5 percentage points. If the government is trying to represent the people, then they should pass the bill either way (IE if it's approval is 70 v 75, or 75 v 80) percent.
The second-order question, on why Democrats don't win landslides even though their policy proposals are very popular, has more to do with voter psychology than anything else. The non-college whites and other Republicans who favor Biden's bills are motivated by other factors than social spending when they go to the voting booth.
This makes sense!
Thanks,
Elliot
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.