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Polls Are Basically Useless


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1 minute ago, The Frankish Reich said:

As you put it: why would the people of Texas, through their elected representatives, pass a law this broad if they didn't want someone to enforce it?

Your anti-abortion people passed it. You own it.

Full circle silly.  Tens of millions of people in that state voted for that governance.  

At the state level ones vote hold 10 times more weight than the federal .

 

And you want the federal government to override the will of the majority in that state.  

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Tommy Callahan said:

Full circle silly.  Tens of millions of people in that state voted for that governance.  

At the state level ones vote hold 10 times more weight than the federal .

 

And you want the federal government to override the will of the majority in that state.  

 

 

Well that's what I'm asking you.

Should Texas have the right to prohibit its own pregnant women from traveling to another state if they have reason to believe it is for the purpose of obtaining an abortion? Yes or no.

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 hours ago, Biden is Mentally Fit said:

For the sake of discussion let’s agree that polls and models are generally inaccurate. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. My question for those that support the Harris/America’s Dad team - to what do you attribute the significant swing seen in Silver’s model?

 

Now, ATTACK!

I am truly curious who were the Americans who flipped to team Kamala right after she took the twins but has since flipped back? I know several people who were weak Biden but stronger Kamala but no one who went from side to side.

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24 minutes ago, Orlando Buffalo said:

I am truly curious who were the Americans who flipped to team Kamala right after she took the twins but has since flipped back? I know several people who were weak Biden but stronger Kamala but no one who went from side to side.

Kamala got her "convention" bump when Biden withdrew and she immediately cleared the field and became prospective nominee.

Although Americans knew who she is, she was kind of an unknown quantity as a Presidential nominee. She was the sought-after "generic Democrat" who always beats Trump in the polls.

So they started chipping away at that, going negative bigly against her. And yes, that has an effect. She is now a real and (and like everyone) flawed candidate. Obviously less flawed than Biden, but flawed.

People on this board and those who consume right or left wing social media and TV are not like most Americans. We are the weird ones. Most people barely pay attention. That's why they're fickle. 

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11 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

People on this board and those who consume right or left wing social media and TV are not like most Americans. We are the weird ones. Most people barely pay attention. That's why they're fickle.

It's everyone feeling this crap economy and the fact the media and politicians been lying to our face about it.  

 

Not everyone is all internet.  But most have to feed themselves and home thems lives and that's bringing pain.  Or God forbid you are dealing with the crime that goes along with living in a dem stronghold. 

 

But it's just the righties online that talk that way.  At no time are the job losses or inflation hurting people.  That's just an online story. 

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Just now, Tommy Callahan said:

 

Nate silver of Polymarket (bookie & chief) that is owned by Peter Teal who hand picked JV as VP for the felon and buddies with Elmo who is giving the felon $45M in make good advertising on twitter? oh cool fantasy world you live in there.

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2 hours ago, Starr-Bills said:

Nate silver of Polymarket (bookie & chief) that is owned by Peter Teal who hand picked JV as VP for the felon and buddies with Elmo who is giving the felon $45M in make good advertising on twitter? oh cool fantasy world you live in there.

Do you believe that the same Nate Silver is fine with making his model/work/career/credibility a laughingstock because he’s in business with Peter Thiel? That seems to be your thinking. Not a very cool fantasy world you live in. Weird. 

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2 minutes ago, Biden is Mentally Fit said:

Do you believe that the same Nate Silver is fine with making his model/work/career/credibility a laughingstock because he’s in business with Peter Thiel? That seems to be your thinking. Not a very cool fantasy world you live in. Weird. 

It is weird.

I simply don't understand arguing with polls or models when you don't like what they're telling you. This thread started out with one of our more liberal commenters saying polls are useless. Then Kamala was substituted in, the polls reflected a gain for Democrats, and conservative commenters said they were garbage. Now they've settled in and analysts like Nate Silver say Trump has a small but significant electoral college edge and liberal commenters are angry with the polls/analysis again.

 

Having said that, Polymarket and other prediction markets are in their infancy and are still very flawed. They are not "polls" and we really don't have a good data to suggest that they truly get at some kind of wisdom of the crowd effect when it comes to elections.

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6 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

It is weird.

I simply don't understand arguing with polls or models when you don't like what they're telling you. This thread started out with one of our more liberal commenters saying polls are useless. Then Kamala was substituted in, the polls reflected a gain for Democrats, and conservative commenters said they were garbage. Now they've settled in and analysts like Nate Silver say Trump has a small but significant electoral college edge and liberal commenters are angry with the polls/analysis again.

 

Having said that, Polymarket and other prediction markets are in their infancy and are still very flawed. They are not "polls" and we really don't have a good data to suggest that they truly get at some kind of wisdom of the crowd effect when it comes to elections.

It used to be common to ignore any polls before Labor Day. Now it's an industry 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Having said that, Polymarket and other prediction markets are in their infancy and are still very flawed. They are not "polls" and we really don't have a good data to suggest that they truly get at some kind of wisdom of the crowd effect when it comes to elections.

Absolutely. It will be interesting to watch unfold. In Silver’s case he’s definitely got his credibility on the line. He can survive being a little wrong but if he’s way off it’s sayonara time. 
 

I’m not willing to declare them “very flawed”. That will have to wait until November. 

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1 minute ago, Tommy Callahan said:

It used to be common to ignore any polls before Labor Day. Now it's an industry 

 

 

True.

I disagree with the premise of this thread - "polls are useless." But I also disagree with the idea that polls like the ones we have today have significant predictive value. We are seeing what we've seen for quite some time - a popular vote favoring the Democratic candidate by a small margin, with the pro-Republican weighted electoral college favoring the Republican candidate by a small margin. In other words, what's happened in pretty much every election over the previous 7 cycles.

2 minutes ago, Biden is Mentally Fit said:

Absolutely. It will be interesting to watch unfold. In Silver’s case he’s definitely got his credibility on the line. He can survive being a little wrong but if he’s way off it’s sayonara time. 
 

I’m not willing to declare them “very flawed”. That will have to wait until November. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/11/14/the-un-wisdom-of-crowds-prediction-markets-failed-their-midterm-exams/

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3 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

True.

I disagree with the premise of this thread - "polls are useless." But I also disagree with the idea that polls like the ones we have today have significant predictive value. We are seeing what we've seen for quite some time - a popular vote favoring the Democratic candidate by a small margin, with the pro-Republican weighted electoral college favoring the Republican candidate by a small margin. In other words, what's happened in pretty much every election over the previous 7 cycles.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/11/14/the-un-wisdom-of-crowds-prediction-markets-failed-their-midterm-exams/

Article/data is almost two years old. I suspect those in the business are concerned with lessons learned and have applied some learning since 2022. I will wait until November to see if they have improved. Happy to crucify all of them if they are wildly off base. 

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Why I don't put much credence in prediction markets:

- most are not legal in the USA. (I don't agree with that, but that's the fact). This distorts the "sample" of participants.

- even in a robust/legal prediction market, people would use these "bets" for different purposes. Back in the pre-app based sports betting days, I'd always buy a $50 or $100 "Bills Win the Super Bowl" long wager whenever I went to Nevada. This was largely a fan-based wager. The Bills weren't going to win the Super Bowl in 2014. But I still did it. Other savvy investors would use prediction markets as a hedge. For example: Let's say I think Trump is likely to win. I buy stock in the private companies that would likely benefit from his policies. Crypto currency markets; immigrant detention private providers (there's basically two of them); companies ready to invest heavily in fracking. You name it. But I think there's a good chance Harris will win. So I hedge by buying Harris "stock" on PredictIt or Polymarket. 

 

Over many millions of bets and billions of dollars, we'd expect an efficient market to emerge, and then have a true "wisdom of the crowd" effect. These markets are not there yet, and may never be.

7 minutes ago, Biden is Mentally Fit said:

Article/data is almost two years old. I suspect those in the business are concerned with lessons learned and have applied some learning since 2022. I will wait until November to see if they have improved. Happy to crucify all of them if they are wildly off base. 

It's not really a "model" at all. It is the result of every bet placed on the major prediction markets. In general, we saw the prediction markets simply echoing the received MSM vision of a "red wave" in 2022 - a wave that never materialized. So the upshot isn't that prediction markets are useless; it's that at this time they are so strongly correlated with the prevailing wisdom (polls/pundits/etc) that they really don't provide independent information.

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21 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

It's not really a "model" at all. It is the result of every bet placed on the major prediction markets. In general, we saw the prediction markets simply echoing the received MSM vision of a "red wave" in 2022 - a wave that never materialized. So the upshot isn't that prediction markets are useless; it's that at this time they are so strongly correlated with the prevailing wisdom (polls/pundits/etc) that they really don't provide independent information

Thank you for the clarification. I will forward to Nate Silver so that he can stop referring to his stuff as a “model”. 

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