Democratic Primaries

highplainsdem

(49,045 posts) Sun Dec 15, 2019, 02:31 PM Dec 2019

LOL! Nate Silver ranks polling battleground states as a group below "lighting your computer on fire"

as he ranks the best ways to conduct primary polls:

Link to tweet

The best ways to conduct primary polls, ranked:

1. Polling individual states

2. National polls

7942. Lighting your computer on fire

46,410. Polls of "battleground states" or any other grouping that is neither the nation nor individual states.

I had to laugh.

And yeah, I posted an OP about the new CBS Battleground Tracker poll of Super Tuesday states. But I do find it frustratiing that CBS doesn't have any info for returns from the individual states they polled, which would have been much more useful than the collective results. (And the Battleground Tracker results CBS has released so far don't even include the first few states that vote, whose individual results they usually publish; I expect that will be released later.)

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden

4 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

LOL! Nate Silver ranks polling battleground states as a group below "lighting your computer on fire" (Original Post) highplainsdem Dec 2019 OP

KR! Cha Dec 2019 #1

He's correct. In reality, only the individual state polls matter. TwilightZone Dec 2019 #2

yep. this is really just common sense stopdiggin Dec 2019 #3

lol! UncleNoel Dec 2019 #4

Cha

(297,799 posts)

1. KR!

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sun Dec 15, 2019, 03:33 PM

Dec 2019

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden

TwilightZone

(25,499 posts)

2. He's correct. In reality, only the individual state polls matter.

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sun Dec 15, 2019, 04:36 PM

Dec 2019

We spend way, way, way too much time fixating on national or aggregated polls when all that really matters is the individual state ones. Many made the same mistake in 2016.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden

stopdiggin

(11,387 posts)

3. yep. this is really just common sense

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sun Dec 15, 2019, 04:56 PM

Dec 2019

if you have the data (polling) you're only deleting it's value by diluting it into the big pot.
If you want to highlight battleground .. give the individual numbers. Fl is not the same as WI, or PA .. and it makes virtually NO sense to pool those results. It's "consumer" political science.

If you can't avoid the lure of simple .. stick to national polling. At least then everyone knows they don't mean much.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided

UncleNoel

(864 posts)

4. lol!

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sun Dec 15, 2019, 09:24 PM

Dec 2019

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden

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