Bet not on polls and pundits, but on wagering markets

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Froma Harrop / Creators.com

Don’t you love those polls that have pundits racing to the news channels bucked up with hyper confidence? When you have one like the recent New York Times/Siena College poll saying that Donald Trump was leading Joe Biden in five of six battleground states, the click-baiting headlines virtually write themselves.

But do the “early data points” say much about what will really happen a year from now? The pundits doing the hard-sell on their powers of divination say yes. After all, if the polls don’t mean anything, who needs their interpretations?

On Election Day, Democrats did far better than expected in an actual vote. Possibly good news for Biden, no? But to many who make a living off polls, good news for Biden can’t be real if it somehow clashes with their numbers.

“The contradiction between Democrats’ success at the ballot box and their struggles in surveys seems to suggest the polling can’t be right,” political analyst Nate Cohn wrote in The New York Times. “It’s an understandable response,” he adds sympathetically, “but it’s probably wrong.” So don’t think for a minute that the electoral results change the outlook for Biden in 2024.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/harrop-bet-not-on-polls-and-pundits-but-on-wagering-markets/

Always love it when the punditocracy is proven wrong.

[TwilightZone]

1. The betting markets had Trump as the favorite from the 2016 election to May 2019.

They're not any more likely to be right early in the campaign cycle than the polls are.

https://www.oddschecker.com/us/insight/specials/politics/20200630-2020-us-presidential-election-odds-and-betting-trump-vs-biden

[lees1975]

2. How closely do people actually watch these pundits and polls?

The shift in the narrative just before, and immediately after the mid-term elections from the media left the impression that the polls were right on target. They weren't. It was this same New York Times-Sienna College, or whoever they were paired with at the time, that got Republicans stirred up about a potential "red wave." They were sure of it. Their rhetoric didn't really tone down until Michael Moore came out and said there would not be a red wave. That was about two weeks before the election. Their numbers, listed in 538 and RCP, shifted back toward the blue as the race "tightened" in the week before the election. And of course, their pundits and apologists adjusted their narratives accordingly, to acknowledge how right the polls were. And within a week of the election, that was true enough, after they realized that baiting the media wouldn't change the outcome.

How much can a poll, funded by Republicans, or more specifically, by Trump, be trusted? These polls appear in the middle of the composites for one purpose, to fluff Trump's numbers and make him look good.

If you think RFK Jr. is running at 20%, then you're drinking the koolaide.

If the election were held tomorrow, Biden would top 80 million votes, Trump would be lucky to get to 55 million, Biden would near the 400 mark in electoral votes and both houses of Congress would go to Democrats without much fuss.