Lock Him Up? A New Poll Has Some Bad News for Trump

Imagine this, What if it was... Obama instead of Trump?

EDIT: I should have put /s. I don't care about party affiliation. The comments after mine are right, lock up anyone who attemped a coup.

I remember reading 538 leading up to the 2016 election, and hearing them say repeatedly that if Trump has a 1 in 4 chance (or whatever amount) of winning the election, not only is it possible for Trump to win, but in fact it means you actually expect it to happen in 1 out of 4 times.

Ok, fair enough. I defer to your expertise.

Indeed, the problem isn't polls themselves, assuming they're well constructed they're generally sound data, it's the interpretation and packaging of it as reported to the larger populous that gets in the way. Sometimes it gets to the point of funny when someone does an infographic where 30% and 60% somehow appear to have the same weight.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

My biggest issue with polls is that the media tout them as predictions, ignoring the fact that even if the data is 100% valid, circumstances can change dramatically in just a couple of days.

I maintain that polls are not actionable data for voters. They can help campaigns see trends and gauge the effectiveness of messaging, but they are useless to voters.

Thanks! I really like how Lemmy users with expertise in their area can add nuance to a lot of reporting, it really matters.

Not the responses themselves but the methodologies of collecting responses don't result in accurate representation of the population.

Using collection methods that skew demographics in one direction or another, like older people being more likely to pick up a phone call.

Failing to account for other potentially major variables. Like the 2016 and 2020 elections, pollsters failed to account for negative voter turnout, people who were motivated to vote against a specific candidate, which had major impacts on the elections.

No, I'm just not certain it's an accurate sample. Polls were way off in 2020 and 2016.

Most polling is done via landline phone. Thus polling does reflect well on the actual voting population.

Yep. Trump's only way of actually staying out of prison at this point isn't winning in an actual courtroom. It's delaying the trials for as long as he possibly can and then winning the general election.

So polls that show he's unlikely to be able to do so are indeed bad news for him.

When you get to the second question, "Do you believe that Donald Trump is guilty of the alleged crimes in the federal 2020 election subversion election case?" and 14% of Republicans think he is guilty. If they are unwilling to vote for Trump, that's potentially an election flusher. While popular vote doesn't win elections (Hillary pulled 2.1% more of the popular vote than Trump in 2016), it can shift the electoral college votes in states, turning red states (potentially) to blue.

In the 2020 election, Trump won North Carolina (15 electoral college votes), Trump got 2,758,775 votes, Biden 2,684,292. If 14% of the republicans abstained from voting in 2020, Trump would have received about 2,372,547 votes, losing the state to Biden rather than winning it.

Yes, Trump lost to Biden anyway in 2020, but Republicans that won't vote for Trump, nor a Democrat, just won't vote. And voters not voting can shift Electoral College votes in states.