09-28-2017, 12:31 PM
(09-28-2017, 10:26 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: The Real Clear Politics average had him losing the popular vote by 3%. He lost it by 2%.
The issue wasn't whether the polls were accurate, but rather they shouldn't have assumed a popular win would equate to an electoral win.
(09-28-2017, 12:11 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Yes that's pretty much my point.
It should be taken with a grain of salt as to what his poll numbers actually mean. The media interpreted the numbers as meaning Trump having no chance to win the election when that clearly was not the case.
Sure, the polls were "accurate" but accurate in relation to what exactly? That's the real issue.
The key word to keep in mind with polls is that they are opinion polls. Opinion translates to the popular vote. Most public opinion polls (with a good reputation) and political science models predicted the popular vote outcome well within their margin of error. The issue is that neither the polls nor the predictive models were designed to predict the electoral college. Because it is an anomaly for a popular vote winner to lose the electoral college, there hasn't been a substantial effort in creating those models.
I actually read a paper on this back in April that was from a poli-sci journal. They did a bit of a de-brief of the predictive models that had published previously and how they compared. Again, most were accurate to the popular vote numbers and within the margin, but there was a big notation as to the lack of modeling for the EC and how, with that happening twice in recent history, it may need to be something they start gearing research towards.
Regardless of all of that, what you are going to continue seeing in public opinion polling is just that, public opinion. This will always have a relationship that is a strong positive correlation to a popular vote count. Those polls weren't wrong, and they continue not to be, and as long as the people don't elect the POTUS it will have a weaker correlative relationship to the EC votes. But, the opinion polls are important because they represent what we consider to be a mandate to lead. When you lack that mandate, it becomes harder to pursue an agenda. If you lack that mandate, then the legislature will be more likely to distance themselves from the administration.
But, what we should also keep in mind, is we don't often see the numbers from internals. Each party runs a number of internal polls that target the party's base. Trump still has a majority of support among Republican voters. This makes the decisions by lawmakers more difficult when dealing with Trump. They have to pay attention to internals because they could face a challenge in the primary, but the other polling is what they look at when it comes to the general.
Personally, I just wish they would all stand up for their own principles and stop governing by polls, but that is the nature of Washington right now. Polls and special interests rule the roost.
