What's Driving Kamala Harris' Surge in the Polls

[Zoomie1986]

16. Not how modern polling works

Phone polls only reach predominantly conservative leaning respondants; retiree, stay at homes, work at homes, lonely people who answer every call.

You know what? Nothing has changed in polling. Even in the landline-only days before the 1990s, some people complained that the the only ones who answered pols were 'conservative leaning respondants; retiree, stay at homes, work at homes, lonely people who answer every call.' Yet somehow, those polls were more accurate than the ones now. What utter nonsense!

I realize this may shock you, but It was a long time ago that pollsters figured out email, voice mail and texts to reach people who don't answer cold calls, so they wind up reaching about as many and as varied of people as they ever did.

Even online polls are biased because they are.opt in. Pollstets have to trust self reported profiles to try to sort respondents. But was the bot honest?

Oh dear. Seriously? Get ready, because this bit of reality will also shock you:

EVERY POLL EVER DONE HAS BEEN OPT-IN.

Do you seriously think pollsters have ever compelled anyone to respond? Come on. Everyone that a pollster contacts can close the web page, hang up the phone, ignore a digital message, or walk away from an in-person pollster. Or they can choose to respond. When you--and only you--have the power to decide to participate in anything, that is the very definition of opt-in. IOW:

EVERY POLL EVER DONE HAS BEEN OPT-IN.

Maybe what you need to face is that it's ridiculous to cry about people choosing to opt-in, and then using that as an excuse not to opt-in. Maybe if people would stop coming up with ridiculous phantasms about polling and choosing to opt-in instead, the polling numbers might swing more toward reality.

It's never even occurred to you that it's gobsmacking chutzpah to refuse to talk to pollsters out of the belief that they only talk to 'conservative leaning respondants; retiree, stay at homes, work at homes, lonely people who answer every call.' But maybe if you'd respond to the pollsters reaching out to you and take their polls, their polls would yield more accurate numbers.

You can't have it both ways. If you want them to hear from people like you, answer the phone or text or whatever and help them get more accurate results. Making excuses that you don't answer certain contacts but don't like how the polls turn out is like whining about a candidate you liked losing an election where you didn't vote. The election boards don't care what you think about any political race. All they can do is hold the election, and then count the votes they get from the people who show up. They're not going to waste time and resources asking what people who stay at home think.

Same thing with polling. Don't complain about their results if you can't be bothered to show up and respond when they give you the opportunity to do so. Maybe the reason I get polled so often is because, like voting, I bother to show up and make myself heard when given the chance to do so.