Democrats are stuck in a doom loop of premature polling

[redqueen]

About those head-to-head matchup polls vs Trump.

(snip)

Another sign that there’s something fishy about these numbers is that the differences among the candidates are implausibly large. The difference between a strong candidate and a weak one can be the difference between winning and losing, but even though swing voters are real, we also know they are relatively rare. There can’t really be 10 percent of the population who’d happily vote for Biden but refuse to vote for Harris.

(snip)

But the reason so many people are undecided when you ask about Harris, O’Rourke, and Buttigieg is lots of people don’t know who they are. If they became the Democratic nominee, this problem would, obviously, go away.

(snip)

In their book The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Christopher Wlezien and Robert Erikson find that polling a year in advance of the election has essentially no correlation with the outcome. Polling right before the election, by contrast, has a lot of correlation with the final outcome. And there’s a healthy middle ground 100-200 days out when the correlation isn’t particularly strong, but it’s not nothing either.

Many consumers of this polling seem to mistakenly perceive us to be in that 100-200 kind of situation where things can change but the poll leader really is more likely to win the election. We’re over 400 days away from Election Day 2020, so far out that it’s not even on the chart above.

...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20875725/campaign-2020-polling-democrats-biden-trump

[HeartlandProgressive]

1. People do not realize that polling is being used to manufacture consent.

At this stage of the primaries, pollsters have enough leeway in how they weight their poll results to tweak them several percentage points in a desired direction. Some do this to push a narrative and manufacture consent about their candidate of choice.

Later, as the election draw closer, these same pollsters miraculous notice a change in the polling landscape and change their results to match reality. This is called "herding" and 538 has discussed this problem at length.

This problem of manufacturing consent is most severe with the online polls, since they survey preselected panels allowing polls to be issued weekly if not even more frequently.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in which the authors propose that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion", by means of the propaganda model of communication.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

[Baclava]

4. "Polling a year in advance of the election has NO correlation with the outcome"

Thats says it all, no poll results can be trusted this far out.

Ignore them all, they dont mean anything. Glad we got this cleared up.

Go Liz!

[MBS]

2. Boy do I ever agree with the general message of this article.

Some quibbles with a sentence here and there, but overall, yes.(For context, this article, by Matthew Yglesias, was published a month ago, on Sept. 23,2019).

Some of the passages that resonated especially with me:

Democratic voters are stuck in a self-destructive loop. The loop begins and ends with polls. Pollsters know that Democrats want to know who is the strongest candidate against President Donald Trump, so they conduct a lot of head-to-head polls matching Trump up against various contenders. The polls show that the best-known Democrats — former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren — are the strongest candidates against him, which likely boosts them in the polls. This makes it hard for the lesser-known candidates to get attention, which further ensures they’ll do poorly in the head-to-head polls against Trump.

The problem is that head-to-head polls at this stage in the race overwhelmingly reflect the challenger’s name recognition rather than anything that would help you predict an election outcome that’s more than a year in the future. It would be naive to think name recognition is the only reason that it’s difficult for anyone to break into the top three. Biden, Sanders, and Warren are all in their way formidable contenders who bring lots of assets and political skills to the table. But if Democratic primary voters are really serious about maximizing their odds in 2020 they need to consider looking outside the doom loop and beyond the top three.
. . .
Early general election polls are not informative
There are lots of people who run around telling people to “ignore the polls,” which is often bad advice in politics. Polls are extremely valuable tools that can tell us a lot about what’s going on and can often be very informative about the potential course of future events. But this particular exercise of polling hypothetical election matchups long in advance of the election is not informative. In their book The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Christopher Wlezien and Robert Erikson find that polling a year in advance of the election has essentially no correlation with the outcome. Polling right before the election, by contrast, has a lot of correlation with the final outcome. And there’s a healthy middle ground 100-200 days out when the correlation isn’t particularly strong, but it’s not nothing either. . . .We’re over 400 days away from Election Day 2020, so far out that it’s not even on the chart . . .
. . .

Look beyond the top three
If Warren becomes the Democratic nominee and beats Trump she will become, on Inauguration Day, the oldest person ever sworn in as president of the United States. The fact that she’s three years younger than Trump should stop this from being a general election liability, and the fact that she’s younger than either Sanders or Biden will definitely keep it from being a primary election liability. But the fact remains that all three of the top Democratic contenders are unusually old for presidential candidates.They’re also ideological outliers in odd ways. Sanders is not formally a member of the Democratic Party and has chosen to identify himself as a democratic socialist. Warren was frequently feuding with members of Obama’s economic team and has embraced a number of electorally dicey positions like providing government health benefits to undocumented immigrants. On the flip side Biden has positioned himself as the candidate of continuity with Barack Obama. But Obama didn’t vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq (Biden says it was a mistake), didn’t have a record as the leader of a misguided “tough on crime” push in the 1990s, and — rather famously — is a standout orator rather than a gaffe machine. . . .

[redqueen]

6. Just gonna highlight this part again

Look beyond the top three

If Warren becomes the Democratic nominee and beats Trump she will become, on Inauguration Day, the oldest person ever sworn in as president of the United States. The fact that she’s three years younger than Trump should stop this from being a general election liability, and the fact that she’s younger than either Sanders or Biden will definitely keep it from being a primary election liability. But the fact remains that all three of the top Democratic contenders are unusually old for presidential candidates.They’re also ideological outliers in odd ways. Sanders is not formally a member of the Democratic Party and has chosen to identify himself as a democratic socialist. Warren was frequently feuding with members of Obama’s economic team and has embraced a number of electorally dicey positions like providing government health benefits to undocumented immigrants. On the flip side Biden has positioned himself as the candidate of continuity with Barack Obama. But Obama didn’t vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq (Biden says it was a mistake), didn’t have a record as the leader of a misguided “tough on crime” push in the 1990s, and — rather famously — is a standout orator rather than a gaffe machine. . . .

[cwydro]

14. ...

[UncleNoel]

3. Back to the Future: Democratic Primary 2015

The FIRST democratic debate was on October 13 2015 and it had only five candidates: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley, Webb and Chafey. The focus was on Clinton and Sanders. Biden dropped out of the race, but was not doing so badly for a time.

The polling was a different world with so few candidates. There was fewer slices so the numbers were larger with all going to the two top tier candidates Clinton and Sanders with Biden, just before dropping out, in the teens. Others I did ot list all of them:
Joe Biden Lincoln
Chafee Hillary
Clinton Lawrence
Lessig Martin
O'Malley Bernie
Sanders Jim Webb

Here is a sample.
Biden Clinton Sanders
Ipsos/Reuters 10/17–21, 2015 Biden 16% Clinton 45% Sanders 29%
ABC News/Washington Post 10/15–18 Biden 16% Clinton 54% Sanders23%
NBC News/WSJ 10/15–18 Biden 15% Clinton 49% Sanders 29%
Etc.

[UncleNoel]

5. If you imagine that Clinton, Sanders, Biden is analogous to

Biden, Warren, Sanders
Clinton, Sanders, Biden

But Clinton had a real big lead.

[cwydro]

7. Rec.

[redqueen]

8. Thanks. Seems like the majority here aren't fans of math.

The math clearly says head to head polls this far out are meaningless.

But there's a giant-ass thread of people freaking the hell out about just that.

[cwydro]

9. I know, right?

Mind boggling.

[TexasTowelie]

10. So how is Yang polling against Trump?

I haven't seen any data.

[redqueen]

12. Not sure nt

[LAS14]

11. Thanks! I'm putting a lot of hope in the idea that people will warm to Warren...

... the way I did when they get to know her better. When Iowa and NH are over and she can spend more time elsewhere.

[Andy823]

13. I couldn't agree more.

Polls are useless right now, but so many people here are trying to use meaningless polls to support the idea only one candidate has a chance to win. It might keep them happy, but it's far from reality.

[myohmy2]

15. I never...

...let polls influence my feelings or selection of a candidate...

...if the polls are good, they will lull you into complacency...if the polls are bad, they'll dampen your enthusiasm and confidence...

...as long as my candidate has an honest chance of winning, I'm there...

...and honestly, you'll be amazed how Bernie will win...

...I guarantee...