Election Polls Are Increasingly Useless. Can We Get Rid of Them?

by

As someone who has witnessed the evolution of media over several decades, I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu when it comes to election polling. Back in my day, we had the Nielsen ratings, and just like with today’s polls, they seemed to hold an unreasonable amount of sway over public opinion. But as time passed, we learned to read between the lines and understand that those numbers were not always a true reflection of reality.

Once upon time, daily TV ratings reports were quite significant. Every weekday morning, The Hollywood Reporter would compile the Nielsen overnight ratings and search for an intriguing narrative hidden within the data. This kind of coverage was highly valued across all trade publications in the industry. However, as the era of streaming and on-demand content emerged, the importance of a show’s initial performance dwindled. As a result, by 2020, The Hollywood Reporter started reporting only the overnight ratings in exceptional cases, as the numbers were becoming increasingly irrelevant.

It appears that the same pattern is being observed in election surveys, yet prominent news organizations continue to devote significant resources for several months to conduct surveys predicting who could potentially lead in Arizona or the margin in the nationwide popular vote. These predictions are then aggregated with other polls to create a composite of polls, which may suggest a trend or indication…of something.

The polls got it very wrong in 2016. 

The polls got it wrong in 2020. 

The polls got it somewhat wrong in 2022. 

2024 polls may not accurately reflect the actual results due to various factors. Even interpreting the polls can be challenging as some data might seem suspicious. Renowned poll analysis expert Nate Silver has criticized pollsters for potentially manipulating their data, a practice he refers to as “herding,” which is similar to cheating, to create an apparent tie and avoid making incorrect predictions in the future.

Modern polling faces challenges due to factors such as hidden supporters for figures like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, difficulties in contacting mobile-only voters, and a rapidly changing political landscape that makes traditional methods less accurate. In essence, the terrain of polling has shifted significantly, leading to more uncertain numbers.

Surveying plays a significant role in political campaigns, as they often conduct their own private surveys. It’s crucial for them to understand whether their strategy is effective and where best to direct their resources among different regions. This kind of surveying is entirely logical.

But why does the general public need to see hundreds of polls in the media during an election cycle? What does that achieve, exactly? Particularly weeks and months in advance? I would argue polls are — and this is my excuse for writing about this in The Hollywood Reporter — an entertainment product. They’re not real news. They’re semi-scientific voodoo; so ephemeral that one study found they are only 60 percent accurate and are becoming less reliable. Yet they’re sponsored by some of the most prestigious media institutions, places where 60 percent accuracy — even 90 percent accuracy — wouldn’t come anywhere close to meeting the threshold for publishing a regular news story. But since these institutions are all invested in polls and getting traffic from poll stories, and we’re not, it’s easy for me to say: Polling is silly. It doesn’t do anybody any good — and might actually do bad. 

Before early voting commences, poll results often create unnecessary tension among voters, and given the current state of things, isn’t more stress what we need? If the polls suggest that our chosen candidate is significantly ahead before the election, it might discourage us from voting since we may feel they have a strong chance of winning regardless. Conversely, if the polls show our preferred candidate trailing significantly, it could also dampen our motivation to vote due to feelings that the outcome is already decided. However, when the polls indicate a tightly contested race, like this election cycle’s polls suggest, they fail to provide the one thing we expect from them – an accurate prediction of who will emerge victorious.

This last scenario is the one polling defenders point to — that a close poll can motivate people to vote. The problem is this assumes the poll is correct when they’re often not, so it might have exactly the opposite effect. And it still doesn’t justify the months of public polling before voting begins. And, since everybody ignores polls when they turn out to be right, yet blast polls when they’re wrong, they arguably contribute to eroding public trust in media since, fairly or unfairly, the misses make a lot more noise than the hits (the polls in 2022, for instance, got a lot right, but they still get lumped in with 2016 and 2020 for the things they didn’t). And we’re living in a time where “getting some stuff wrong” should not be okay. The same outlets that rightly fret about online misinformation are also posting stories like: Harris is up two points in Wisconsin maybe lol?

Imagine how the past few months might have felt if you had not encountered a single poll article, but instead just received news and personal opinions about the candidates. Undeniably, it would still have been unpleasant, but perhaps less so? Instead, it appears that the polling community (often referred to as The Polling Industrial Complex or Big Polling) seems overly preoccupied with finding ways to improve poll accuracy following each public mishap – exploring new weightings, methodologies, and adjustments. One can’t help but wonder: Could we be asking ourselves whether we should even continue doing this at all? In other words, they’ve been so focused on whether they could do it better, that they haven’t considered whether they should be doing it in the first place.

So whomever emerges victorious today, moving forward let’s all agree to vote with our attention and no longer read poll stories. If we all do this, then they will go away and bother us no more. Granted, from surveying my friends, most of whom did not answer the phone, the chances that this will work is maybe 2 percent, and that’s within the margin of error.  

Read More

2024-11-05 21:24