Media and polsters....accountable?

[justoffal]

They're calling it the Brexit effect....or is that just an excuse?

There are a lot of pissed off people on the left right now that are trying to understand how the media and the polsters got it so wrong.

If it's any consolation Larry Sabado .... A staunchly conservative poll predictor had Hillary at 320 + electoral votes.....but then again maybe he was just trying to do the standard CYA stuff.

On the other hand there were voices out there that said right from the beginning of the primaries that Trump was dangerous and had a good shot at going all the way.

Is it possible that the polling has become so lazy as to completely ignore sample quality?

Was there a conscious effort to distort the numbers in hopes of affecting the outcome?

Who is to blame here and how can they be held accountable?

 

[Days]

technology shift... phone polls are outdated.

online polls predicted a big Trump win. The networks ignored that at their own peril.

 

[Jen]

They're calling it the Brexit effect....or is that just an excuse?

There are a lot of pissed off people on the left right now that are trying to understand how the media and the polsters got it so wrong.

If it's any consolation Larry Sabado .... A staunchly conservative poll predictor had Hillary at 320 + electoral votes.....but then again maybe he was just trying to do the standard CYA stuff.

On the other hand there were voices out there that said right from the beginning of the primaries that Trump was dangerous and had a good shot at going all the way.

Is it possible that the polling has become so lazy as to completely ignore sample quality?

Was there a conscious effort to distort the numbers in hopes of affecting the outcome?

Who is to blame here and how can they be held accountable?

They didn't want to think about what was happening so they didn't.
Accountable?
Leftists are NEVER accountable.

 

[connieb]

They're calling it the Brexit effect....or is that just an excuse?

There are a lot of pissed off people on the left right now that are trying to understand how the media and the polsters got it so wrong.

If it's any consolation Larry Sabado .... A staunchly conservative poll predictor had Hillary at 320 + electoral votes.....but then again maybe he was just trying to do the standard CYA stuff.

On the other hand there were voices out there that said right from the beginning of the primaries that Trump was dangerous and had a good shot at going all the way.

Is it possible that the polling has become so lazy as to completely ignore sample quality?

Was there a conscious effort to distort the numbers in hopes of affecting the outcome?

Who is to blame here and how can they be held accountable?

No one really can be held accountable other than to no longer rely on their data.

But as to how they got it wrong, I would say several ways. Like Days mentioned phone polling is outdated. I don't even answer a phone number I don't recognize and I know many who don't either. So I wonder who are they actually getting? I think too that they use way too small of a sample size. And I think here like Brexit, the media was so negative that people did not want to actually say.

For their part the media engaged in significant confirmation bias. They announced every poll as if t was some kind of certainty. They failed to adequately assess the undecided vote in their "analysis" and also failed to consider the margin of error which was anywhere from 2 to 5 on most polls. Which if Hillary was up by 2 could mean that she could lose by as much as three. But instead of talking about that they talked about her comfortable lead.

I know many of my alt left friends are shocked particularly when they look at the red map with a few tiny blue spots because I think that they do spend far too much time in their own bubble. They read the tripe in Huffpo and Slate and think it's witty and insightful and have no idea that the entire other half of the country are collectively rolling their eyes. And part of that though comes honestly because even when they are in the company of people with really conservative values many of those people, like myself IRL, are far too polite to argue with them or want to be the bigger person and keep the peace so they let their leftist family members rant and rave while politely smiling and nodding and the leftist don't realize that their friends and family are merely humouring them so they think more people agree with them than really do. But because lefties are frequently very emotional people who are sometimes unstable and often very easily offended conservatives who are friends with them have learned that if they like or care about them and want to maintain a relationship with them you can not challenge their worldview. So I think lefties are often in the dark about what people think.

 

[bdtex]

They're calling it the Brexit effect....or is that just an excuse?

There are a lot of pissed off people on the left right now that are trying to understand how the media and the polsters got it so wrong.

If it's any consolation Larry Sabado .... A staunchly conservative poll predictor had Hillary at 320 + electoral votes.....but then again maybe he was just trying to do the standard CYA stuff.

On the other hand there were voices out there that said right from the beginning of the primaries that Trump was dangerous and had a good shot at going all the way.

Is it possible that the polling has become so lazy as to completely ignore sample quality?

Was there a conscious effort to distort the numbers in hopes of affecting the outcome?

Who is to blame here and how can they be held accountable?

Can't tell ya dude. I live in the suburbs of the 3rd largest city in the USA in the biggest red state of them all. I travelled to Richmond,VA for 6 days,Chattannooga,TN for 6 days and Pittsburgh,PA for 5 days this year,but tuned politics out the entire time. Was hardly online much while in Richmond and Chattanooga. Didn't watch a tv at all in Chattanooga,which was June,and have hardly watched one since.