{"id":341,"date":"2014-11-10T14:02:20","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T20:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conservativelefty.wordpress.com\/?p=341"},"modified":"2014-11-10T14:02:20","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T20:02:20","slug":"election-results-looked-nothing-like-the-polls-what-gives-tcot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Election results looked nothing like the polls — what gives? #tcot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"I<\/a>So, now the press is calling for an investigation since the polls were wrong.<\/p>\n

Election results looked nothing like the polls — what gives? | Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An “investigation?”<\/p>\n

REALLY???<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>It’s not all that hard, people. \u00a0There are four issues, three of which are fundamental.<\/p>\n

1. Polls are\u00a0retrospective\u00a0<\/em>not\u00a0predictive<\/em>. \u00a0With comments that were coming out – especially of Obama helping to nationalize the election – opinions can change very quickly.<\/p>\n

2. Push polls vs. opinion polls. \u00a0Far too many of the polls I saw seemed more interested in shaping opinion rather than discovering opinion. \u00a0Sometimes this was due to the biases of the poll’s designer subconsciously influencing the questions. \u00a0Sometimes it was by intent to use the poll as a marketing tool.<\/p>\n

3. Error in interpreting the meaning. \u00a0This was a biggie. \u00a0It seems almost everyone interpreted dissatisfaction or dislike of Republicans as something that benefited the Democrat. \u00a0The reality is that much of the anger at Republicans is that they have not done\u00a0enough\u00a0oppose and reverse Obama’s agenda<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0 Outside of a few moderate centers, people are sick and tired of Republicans being “Democrat Lite,” and their bait-and-switch tactic.<\/p>\n

4. People responding lied. \u00a0In some cases it was out of fear and distrust. \u00a0I mean, when the Democrats are sending out warnings that they’ll know if you don’t vote, can you really blame that? \u00a0The other reason that people lied is to intentionally screw up the results. \u00a0Browse around online, you’ll find plenty of people bragging of just that. \u00a0This is especially the case in libertarian circles and with people who are fed up with the constant spam phone calls.<\/p>\n

Add these in to the inherently chancy nature of predicting future based on a poll and you have the recipe for what we’ve seen here. \u00a0There is one interpretation that should be easy to draw from these poll results. \u00a0The political class – including these pollsters – are completely out of touch with the American people. \u00a0Want better polls? \u00a0Check yourself for the logical errors in presumption and then address the four points above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, now the press is calling for an investigation since the polls were wrong. Election results looked nothing like the polls — what gives? | Fox News. An “investigation?” REALLY??? \u00a0It’s not all that hard, people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[22,51,56,68,86,88,100,104,106,115],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-politics","tag-tcot","tag-current-events","tag-election","tag-government","tag-mainstream-meda","tag-media","tag-politics-2","tag-press","tag-progressives","tag-tea-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yCHs-5v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}