ChiGoose

How does one know their poll is bad in the moment? Do you believe that Selzer should have compared her poll to others and if it didn’t match, toss it or change it? Because that’s an argument in favor of poll herding. Selzer missed the 2024 election by 16 points. She has also missed other elections by 11, 10, 9, 8, and 7 points over almost 30 years. She’s well regarded because the vast majority of her polls ended up very close to the final outcome. Because that’s how polling works. If you’re honest, you are going to miss. It happens. Selzer could have looked at her number being way off from the margin and done what her peers do: change her numbers to better fit the narrative. She did the correct thing by not doing so and now people are somehow claiming that this is evidence of her fudging the numbers.

Polling misses happen all of the time, it's just the nature of the business. You're taking a sample of people and extrapolating for an entire population. Most pollsters also include assumptions and try to fit their sample to the population (if 10% of the population is Demographic X but only 2% of the sample is Demographic X, they may decide to multiply the answers from Demographic X respondents by 5). To avoid looking as bad as Selzer does here, a lot of pollsters "herd" their polls: they fudge the numbers so their results look like what other pollsters are showing. This way they aren't way out on a limb. If a pollster has a result that shows John Doe +10 but the current polling average is John Doe +3, they can adjust their polling assumptions to get a number closer to +3. There has been a lot of discourse on the accuracy of polling (including here on PPP) and how to poll in a world where people don't use landlines and don't answer calls from numbers they don't know. Selzer's methods have been pretty good for most of her career but either her methodology no longer works, she was unlucky in her sample, or a combination of both. In any case, there's no evidence of anything nefarious here. Ultimately, I think the backlash against her poll is going to result in more pollsters herding instead of posting their real results and I think that's a bad thing.

If Selzer's numbers were correct, it'd almost certainly mean a Harris landslide where she won 350+ electoral votes. If Dem voters thought the race was in the bag, that would be more likely to decrease turnout than to increase it. Simplest explanation remains: she missed hard. Not the first time she's missed, but certainly the biggest one.

Selzer famously never herds her polls. She puts the work out there and she's right more often than wrong (she has had misses before). But because people don't understand polling/statistics and because (as you continually like to demonstrate) the MAGA population seems especially ignorant on how things work, they come up with conspiracies that don't make sense if given even the smallest amount of scrutiny. Let's say Selzer intentionally fudged her poll to boost Harris numbers. Why? What would that accomplish? A good media cycle? In an environment where all of the polls were showing the race basically even, the Selzer poll stood as a clear outlier. Remember that at the time, the Harris campaign was running on a theme of being the underdog. They did not want their voters to get complacent (which seems like a pretty accurate concern considering how things ended up). A popular poll showing numbers that would indicate a Harris landslide would go *against* the campaign's messaging at the time. Imagine you have a classroom of 20 students, you give each of them a coin and tell them to flip it 100 times and mark down how many times it came up heads. 19 of the 20 students reported that it landed heads 50 times while one of them reported heads 57 times. Who do you think was being honest vs who do you think was fudging the numbers?

Me: Much of the MAGA movement is built on ignorance Guy who can’t tell the difference between “equals” and “does not equal”: Ann Selzer intentionally tanked her career for a fake poll because… reasons.

There was a study years ago that showed that Fox News viewers knew less about current events than people who did not consume the news. I’d love for someone to run a similar study today in our current media environment because it’s clear that the underlying foundation of MAGA is ignorance and emotional reactions.

Hey kids, don’t do drugs.

I can see you are addicted to taking L’s to the level that would make Aaron Rodgers jealous. I made a simple point that is backed by facts and evidence. You then went on a long string of posts completely missing the point and confusing “does not equal” with “equal” because you are trapped in a small little bubble. You then went down the internet “debate me bro” line by throwing out challenges that have no bearing on the claim I made but make sense to you because (once again) you are living in a bubble. I encourage you to go talk to your (I’m assuming middle school?) teacher to explain to you how facts and logic work before you continue to embarrass yourself.

I believe that sanctuary cities do not increase crime. I believe that illegal immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native born citizens. I believe these things because they are supported by data and studies. Therefore, I believe that people whose arguments that sanctuary cities and illegal immigrants increase crime rates are either ignorant or lying. I have been consistent on this the whole time. It’s you who has brought your prejudices, ignorance, and media biases into the discussion to pretend I said things I never said because it would fit your narrative. Maybe this is a time for you to do a little introspection as to how you screwed up so badly.

Please point to where I argued for more illegal immigrants.

“You think a strawman argument is a strawman argument? You think ‘does not equal’ doesn’t mean ‘equal’?” Hey kid, maybe ask your parents to limit your internet access at this point because you clearly don’t understand how to use it without embarrassing yourself.

Holy *****. You really are ignorant, huh? Imagine thinking that “=/=“ is the same as “=“ Incredible. Has anyone ever dunked on themselves this hard before?

How old are you? 12? You are seemingly fundamentally incapable of staying on topic and insist on introducing straw men arguments. In fact, your brain has been so pickled by your media bubble that there are very few actual arguments you present that are not a straw man. Please provide citation for the following: “You literally stated ‘sanctuary cities make cities better’”

It’s not my loophole, it’s the law. If people come here legally but overstay their welcome, that’s a civil matter, not a criminal one. Some examples of this would be someone being here on a visitor visa but then working without a work visa, or someone coming here on a student visa but quitting school to start a business. As far as policy is concerned, I think our legal immigration system is an abject disaster and no attempt to resolve illegal immigration without addressing the problems with our legal immigration system is doomed to failure. You keep doing the thing where you claim I said something I never did. Are you a child, or are you just dumb?

Ok, to make it simple for you because you’re clearly struggling here: ”Sanctuary city policies do not increase crime” =/= “Sanctuary cities make cities better*” *”better” or “improved” are subjective and non-falsifiable terms you are confusing with a different falsifiable claim. It is not a crime to be undocumented in the US. Something like 45% of people who we colloquially call “illegal immigrants” actually came here through legal means but are no longer in compliance (such as overstaying a visa or doing work that is not allowed under the visa that they came in on). Additionally, the studies are looking at whether or not illegal immigrants commit crimes once they are here since that is an apples-to-apples comparison.