kwcollins

RT @[email protected]

The pollsters don’t have any firm grasp on the races, the poll aggregators don’t know how to rate the pollsters, and the reporters who work off of vibes often have the vibes wrong. But you have the power to decide to vote and decide who to vote for, and I hope you use it wisely. https://twitter.com/kwcollins/status/1366846726380863488

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1588504835430973440

Kevin Collins on Twitter

“How much more accurate is a poll from a firm rated A+ by @FiveThirtyEight relative to a poll from a firm rated D- or one that is unrated?”

Twitter
Nov 4, 2022 at 12:59pmMastodon Twitter Crossposter
Show threadkwcollinsNov 4, 2022
FWIW, this is decidedly *not* my interpretation of the graph I made this year (except for the last bit about you having the power to vote and should use it). My interpretation is pollsters highly graded by 538 in 2020 weren't more accurate than poorly graded pollsters
Show threadkwcollinsNov 4, 2022
And that people have unrealistic expectations of what polls do, a problem worsened by failure on the part of some outlets to accurately report the level of certainty polls can provide (i.e. too many decimal places, and reporting MOE as if sampling error was only source of error)
Show threadkwcollinsNov 4, 2022
For state level polls, you should *at least* mentally double the margin of error to account for non-sampling sources of error. For more on this, see https://5harad.com/papers/polling-errors.pdf
Show threadkwcollinsNov 4, 2022
The implication of that is that given typical polling sizes, you simply can't tell who will win with certainty in close races from polls (or even lots of polls averaged together), and expecting polling to provide more certainty than it can will lead to inevitable disappointment
Show threadkwcollinsNov 4, 2022

But also, polling is still the most reliable way to assess the state of races, far more reliable than, for instance, differences in early vote by partisan registration.

So look at the polls, understand them with correct caveats, and go vote regardless of what they say.

Show threadKaren Monroy, Ph.D, Psy.DNov 5, 2022
@kwcollins I’m encouraged by the significant turnout of young, women and especially women of color. The “polls” don’t sample well either by intention or ignorance. #VoteBlueAllTheWayDownTheBallot ignore the polls.