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Originally posted by: friedmush
I'm not interested in getting into ugly politics and really who cares about my opinion, But I will offer to clarify a few things about polling after reading a lot of misinformation on these boards and elsewhere.
I commission two surveys a year and they predict results to the percentage point. I have a lot of faith in surveys and research if it is done right. I have presented a couple of times nationally on the value of surveys and research for businesses and organizations as well.
With the latest Presidential election, which shocked many people, the surprise came not so much because of the polling data but instead because of the way the polling data was interpreted by media, pundits, politicians, etc. By and large the election results came in within the margin of error. Clinton was expected to win the popular vote by close to 4 million, but she only won by about 3 million. The Trump victories in some of these states that tipped the electoral college came within the margin of error. The issue is that polling data demonstrated that the electoral college outcome was very much up in the air ahead of election day. But reporting had Clinton up by X points, depending on the day, which is somewhat meaningless.
Regarding Trump's 40% approval rating this is reflective of all Americans and not registered voters. So it's not necessarily indicative of the outcome of an election if it were held today between Clinton and Trump. ... To that point, young people and minorities have a much lower voter turnout. ... Some believed that Arizona, a longstanding, dependable Red state, would be in play for Clinton last year due to Trump's comments about Hispanics and Mexicans and our state's substantial Hispanic population. I was skeptical and sure enough statistically it proved true again. While 32% of Arizonans are Hispanic, they only represented 13% of the vote. ... Likewise, 18 to 24 voter turnout of all races is abyssmal, 25 to 34 isn't much better. ... Voters over age 65 turn out at a disproportionate rate. 55 to 64 also has very high voter turnout.
I bring up the age and voter turnout issue because it will likely impact other social races down the line, such as gay marriage or recreational marijuana usage. ... There is a Mason Dixon line on these issues, I don't know what they are off the top of my head, but a majority of people under, let's say, 53 years of age, support gay marriage and a majority of people over 53 are opposed to gay marriage. So as older voters eventually disappear and the trend continues down, these may be easy victories for these causes some day.
Just some things to gnaw on.
Hiliary's 3 million votes came largely in the big states where after winning the state, any extra votes don't mean crap. However, Clinton's talk of accepting the election results were never followed by her own party which is hell bent on trying to invalidate the election results by any means necessary. (the russian hacking issue)
The next 2 years will tell the tale, although the Democrats are going to get a taste of their own medicine on that 60 vote shit...
