Today’s entry: I’m starting to believe polls really are being used to attempt to suppress voters. No one in their right mind would think Joe Biden is up by double-digits nationally let alone in states Trump won! My question is how easy is it to conduct these polls and get them reported? How much money are media companies putting into these bogus polls?
Bottom Line: For four years pollsters have been the most loathed element of the political reporting process for most Trump supporters. However, I’ve pointed out that the national polls were more or less correct. Context is always key. Yes, most pollsters' oversampled support for Hillary Clinton but not to the extent most think. The RealClearPolitics average of national polls showed Hillary Clinton winning by 3.3%. She won the popular vote by 2.1%, thus the average national pollster was only off by around 1.2%. The bigger issues came with the state polling.
Recent history would seem to suggest that if pollsters are set to blow it again, those Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are good places to start. But does it really rise to the level of conspiracy? One of the oversimplifications is that the media entity sponsored polls. Truth is, they’re not, they’re the ones who pay accredited firms to commission the polls. There are numerous accredited firms. Some of which poll nationally, many more which operate regionally or locally. As a result, the cost of accredited polls has a huge variance cost.
The cheapest possible accredited poll costs $600. That would be a single question local poll. It’s also possible to spend over $100,000 on a national poll, using callout as opposed to automated services. In the grand scheme of the money thrown around during election cycles, the barrier to entry for media outlets is low. That’s led to the proliferation of polling over the years.
Now, let's go back to the theory of voter suppression through polls. There’s no evidence of the intent to engage in voter suppression through polling. Additionally, since accredited firms are hired by those sponsoring most polls, were any evidence of this to surface, it’d literally put the accredited firms out of business. That’s not to say it isn’t possible, just that the risk for those who’d go along with the scheme would be about as high as it gets. The most likely explanation is how poor the samples and modeling are within many of these polls.
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