Trump vs Clinton Polling - Are they skewed?

originally posted by: Christosterone
I'm not a Trump supporter but you can be sure I will be voting for him...because he is the better option BY FAR than Secretary Clinton...

So, people like me could easily be under reported...

Nixon coined a brilliant phrase in regard to draft dodging hippie protesters: "A silent majority exists" that diaagrees with radicals....or something to that effect...

Anyhow, I believe there are MILLIONS of people like me who are horrified at the thought of another Clinton President..

-Christosterone

Actually, you are correct. I don't have an idea about the exact number, but Trump has supporters who currently won't admit it.

Behind closed doors, in hushed voices, and after checking over both shoulders to confirm no one else is within earshot, people you would never expect are confessing to the strangest thing: they too will be voting for Trump. Although such an admission typically comes after such often repeated caveats like, “I don’t agree with everything he says …” or “I’m definitely not a racist …” or “he might have no clue what he’s talking about …,” what matters is that when shielded from public judgment and when no one can see, people admit they actually like some of Trump’s common sense and arguably politically incorrect positions. Why this is significant is because of the most important dark place, where no one else is watching and where an individual’s opinion is safe from ridicule: the voting booth!

www.mediaite.com...

originally posted by: Christosterone
I'm not a Trump supporter but you can be sure I will be voting for him...because he is the better option BY FAR than Secretary Clinton...

So, people like me could easily be under reported...

Nixon coined a brilliant phrase in regard to draft dodging hippie protesters: "A silent majority exists" that diaagrees with radicals....or something to that effect...

Anyhow, I believe there are MILLIONS of people like me who are horrified at the thought of another Clinton President..

-Christosterone

underreported on a poll isn't (supposed to be) a thing. Its a poll..you answer the question, that becomes a statistic. They dont care for reasons, desires, intent, etc..so unless you are telling the pollsters you are going for clinton, then it wont be incorrect.

As far as the "another clinton" thing..people liked Bill. Hillary is trying to ride the coattails of Bill and hopefully people will think it will be the same thing in the publics mind. There may be millions that hated Bill, but there were 10s of millions who loved (and continue to love) the guy.

The only tactic that seems to work is to remind the public that Hillary is not Bill and to judge her based on her alone, not her husband.

a reply to: SaturnFX

Actually that's wrong...polls and media reporting are skewed in any number of ways...

Confirmation Bias

Hope that helps.

-Christosterone

a reply to: UKTruth

Polling gives patricians an idea of what the mob is thinking, and of how that idea might be changed, or shall we say, "shaped". It is the essential weapon in the mastery of populism by the elite. It also allows for "fine calibration", and for capsules of "message" to be prescribed for variant constituencies.

- Hitchens, Christopher (2000) No One Left To Lie To

a reply to: UKTruth

Of course the polls are skewed and skewed for the most of them toward Hilary.
Polls can be crafted and carried out in the manner necessary to produce any desired result.

There' no "truth" in polling.

Whoever said the usual stuff isn't working this time around is likely very right.

Nate Silver has been working his magic formula and so far, he's predicted Trump's demise with it seven times. Now he's saying there is an 80% chance Trump will lose the general. Unless he has really changed his formula, I'm not sure I like his accuracy this cycle but he's been pretty dead one for the last two.

It's all about who you ask, and what you ask.

For example. A poll saying 85% of Bernie Supporters are voting for Hillary.

Question asked: "In a choice between Hillary and Trump, which would you vote for"
Answer: "Neither, I'm voting for Stein"
Question: "Ok, but IF it was between those two?"
Answer: "Well, not Trump"

Counted as a vote for Hillary by the pollster.

Maybe not exact, but you get the gist. Statistics are lies, damn lies. How can ANYONE who has ever taken a stats class accept any poll data ever?

To emphasise just how skewed the polls must be - Trump is now +7 ahead of Clinton nationally according to Rasmussen and -11 vs Clinton according to Reuters.

August 30, 2016

The average of the polls that www.RealClearPolitics.com follows, shows that Donald Trump is once again gaining on Hillary. She's up by just 4.3 points now. There's a "down" arrow next to her name, which means she's still declining, right?

originally posted by: carewemust
August 30, 2016

The average of the polls that www.RealClearPolitics.com follows, shows that Donald Trump is once again gaining on Hillary. She's up by just 4.3 points now. There's a "down" arrow next to her name, which means she's still declining, right?

The polls are all over the place, but generally yes Trump is closing according to the polls. Reuters had him 12 points behind and now they are even (and that is AFTER a methodology change that had a +8 point positive impact for Clinton) What gives? LA Times now has Trump ahead. UPI had it level. Another poll has Clinton 10 points up. RCP are taking an average of complete nonsense it seems, which makes the average complete nonsense this time around.
Monmouth have Clinton ahead everywhere they poll including +7 Nationally, but I looked at the detail and they change the numbers. More people in their poll identified as Republican, but because they don't believe it they changed the hard numbers to reflect more people are really Democrat. The swing is worth up to 6-7 points.