OK...so tell us why we should believe polls showing HRC ahead of Bernie in some primaries...

[Ken Burch]

...and totally disregard polls showing Bernie beating the GOP "like a rented mule" in the fall?

This should be good:

[Cali_Democrat]

1. You shouldn't

That was easy.

[elleng]

2. No reason to believe ANY polls now.

[RandySF]

3. Because the primaries are sooner than the general.

GE polls are hypothetical at this point and it's common for one candidate to seemingly do better than the eventual nominee.

[Omaha Steve]

4. .

[Betty Karlson]

5. Because the first favour the status quo, and the latter favour change? eom

[dsc]

6. neither poll is infallible

but the general election polls are more off than the primary ones. First, the election is further away. Second, Bernie is closer to being a generic Democrat than Hillary is while the GOP candidates are closer to being generic Republicans with the exception of Bush and Trump. Thus any poll between Bernie and those candidates is more fairly interpreted as Generic Dem vs Generic GOP or Generic Dem vs Bush or Trump. Generic generally does better than known in matchups this far out. Thirdly, and related to two, Bernie hasn't had any GOP attacks leveled at him in any form and the press has pretty much ignored him. Both of those would change instantaniously the second he got the nomination. Both would drive his poll numbers down.

[NCTraveler]

7. You shouldn't.

That is a lot of popcorn.

[restorefreedom]

13. lol. nt

[Renew Deal]

8. You shouldn't. You don't need to believe in the moon landing either.

[restorefreedom]

14. moon landing... pishaw.....

people actually on the moon?

[randome]

9. Please. No one believes in numbers anymore. That's so passe.

Believe what you want. The closer we get to an actual event, the more believable the numbers turn out to be. With the exception of Dewey beats Truman, of course.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[Ferd Berfel]

10. Several of the 'scientific' polls regularly quoted here don't publish HOW they

came up with the numbers

HRC has Bernie by 35 points!!! But don't ask where those number came from.

[MineralMan]

11. I don't look at general election polls until

it's clear who the nominees will be. They make no sense until then, in my opinion. Primary polls are closer to the actual election and the players are clearly known. National primary polls are not all that useful, really, since primaries are a state-by-state thing. So, I'm really mainly interested in recent polling for upcoming primaries.

Polls that are statistically tied are of little interest, either, since they are not reliably predictive.

The only reason that national primary polling is interesting is that they provide a glimpse into probabilities when all 50 states are considered. They're useful for that, but only based on trends in the results.

[brooklynite]

12. OK...so tell us why we should believe polls showing Bernie beating the GOP...

...when Sanders supporters keep telling us the polls are "corporate" and "biased"?

[restorefreedom]

15. i don't think any polls are particularly trustworthy right now

too much angst over them imo

[TumbleAndJumble]

16. If that popcorn (your post) comes with butter, I'm a buyer.

And I believe there is butter and I think all the polling this year must be observed the highest level of skepticism and disbelief.

Remember the new operative position of all that is news is:

They are telling what you believe, not from any format and that includes polls, are you being told what actual people believe.


> "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."-Karl Rove (Source)"