538 gives a blowjob to Donald Trump

[speak easy]

Last edited Fri May 12, 2023, 02:40 PM - Edit history (2)

Anyone who has followed the history of opinion pollsters knows the shameful, dishonorable history of Scott Rasmussen and his 'Reports'. Many years later, 538 are still giving oxygen to the outfit that 'bares' his name-

Do Americans have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump?
Average: Favorable 43.9%; Unfavorable 51.5% (-7.6)
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/

Do Americans have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump?
Rasmussen: Favorable 59%; Unfavorable 39 (+20)
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/

538 rates Rasmussen a 'B' pollster. May I not so respectfully rate 538 as a FU.

[uponit7771]

1. Does 538 rate by the poll or the pollster? Click bait polls are the msm new toy

[brooklynite]

3. 538 Pollster ratings...

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

[Demsrule86]

5. 538 has a duty rate polls correctly and have standards which they don't which is why they

are completely useless. I will be happy when Nate is gone. Perhaps someone new won't kowtow to the GOP...one wonders about how much money Nate makes on this kind of crap.

[uponit7771]

13. +1

[RobinA]

17. It Won't Matter

everybody hates pollsters when they publish a poll the person doesn't like. It's kind of hilarious.

[brooklynite]

2. 538 DOES NOT DO POLLS.

They’re reporting the polling data that exists; nothing more.

[Demsrule86]

6. And they report fake GOP polls giving them A+B ratings. For example, Real Clear politics takes

GOP money. And there are other slanted polls that 538 should not even allow on the site.

[brooklynite]

7. RCP doesn't do polling either.

Most of 548's tables lets you filter data to your preference.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. You can't filter out polls in their prediction model

Those are the numbers that get reported in the headlines, and craft media narratives.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. But they have a fatal flaw

In the last midterms, 538 refused to exclude a flood of obviously shitty outlier polls from RW pollsters such as Trafalgar that were released specifically to manipulate 538’s polling averages in the final weeks before the election.

The methodology and sampling in these polls (several dozen polls were released in October by these outlets ) were easily identifiable as flawed, yet rather than exclude them from his average, Nate shrugged and said “Dems can do their own shitty polls too, if they want”. (Note: Rasmussen, while having a measurable Republican bias, was not among the outlets releasing these significantly flawed polls to push a distorted average showing a Red Wave)

In an election post mortem, Nate downgraded the offending pollsters by half a grade , from A- to B+ for Trafalgar, IIRC.

Now there have been pollsters in the past that 538 has rated “F” and excluded from their aggregate averages and prediction modeling software, but not this time.

Now Nate is losing his job and his website; we shall see if Disney tries to rectify Nate’s past egregious errors.

[Scrivener7]

10. They're selecting polls to report on that are consistently huge outliers, always in the

direction of favoring republiQans.

[keithbvadu2]

4. There are many polls. Pick the one you like and swear by it. Swear at the others. .............

There are many polls.

Pick the one you like and swear by it.

Swear at the others.

.................... That's why candidates sometimes refer to mystery polls that no one can locate to check.

[TwilightZone]

11. Campaigns have internal polls that often aren't made public.

Trump's state internals showed that he was quite likely going to lose in 2020, which is part of the reason he started complaining before election day had even arrived.

[sarisataka]

12. I am so old

I can recall when some of us expressed reservations about the 2016 election we were told-

"Go check out 538 and relax. It's in the bag."

They were our goto for poll numbers we liked

[Autumn]

15. Yeah I remember that well.

[lees1975]

14. 538 has been over-run by puff polls for quite a while now.

They're just off, both ways most of the time.

[toroyoung]

16. Nate had nice words for Trafalgar

And you know the rest.