From the PoliticusUSA Substack Newsletter: We could take apart the ABC News/Washington Post poll over several newsletters, but for brevity and clarity, let’s go over some of the main issues. I have participated in the ABC News/Washington Post Poll in the past, and one of the things that you need to understand first is that this is a random poll.
Thank you Tom, it explains why this poll annoyed me. I’m so tired of media obsessing about President Biden’s age and fitness when it’s clear what an amazing job he’s doing under impossible circumstances. He’s championed historic legislation. He’s quietly rebuilding agencies that were decimated by Trump while restoring our international reputation. All with the GOP undermining him and lying at every turn. We are very lucky to have him as our president.
Pretty effing sick and tired of all the effing polls 18 months out! Pretty effing tired of MSM bloviating over Trump and DeSantis. They are poison to Democracy. DeSantis is an outright FASCIST! Trump is a huge orange blob of 💩! I'm just sick and tired of people wiping their feet all over the
Constitution and basically
calling our Founding Fathers
lame brains. Without them, we wouldn't have this country! We'd still be kissing
the new King Charles ring.
Want to talk lame brains? Look at the current GOP,
MAGAs; one and the same! A
bunch of wackos ready to blow it all up! Send even their
poorest constituents, I'm talking the poor WHITE people in their RED states,
to hell.
Black lives, Brown lives, Oriental lives matter? Not to
these lame brains. Heck, they
!don't even care what they do to each other.
You get what and who you vote for. OR in many cases,
what you DON'T vote at all
for.
Democrats better get off their asses NOW and start
pulling for Joseph Biden. Better quit their damned infighting and pull together!
Get Feinstein back on the job
or vote to retire her now. Better take off the gloves and
I'd much rather have King Charles in charge than any of the GOPers that are running or thinking about running. And I'd rather have King Charles than RFK Jr.
But Biden is the best president of my lifetime, which began under Eisenhower, unless you want to be picky and note that Truman was president when I was conceived. (I love being picky about stuff like that. I'm one of those rare people that even knows the date of conception, but I digress!) Biden is the Man of the Hour, and as Victoria says, we need to be pulling for him. And for Democrats running for Senate and House!
I actually remember being almost four in November '52 and accompanying my father to the local school (PS 122 in Astoria). he asked me who he should vote for and (obviously I'd been hearing him yelling about Ike being hopelessly outclassed by Stevenson) I told him to vote for Stevenson. I remember EVERYTHING about that moment. the lights in the gym, the smell of the building (which I later attended for two years and which is now---YAY!!--a "Core Knowledge Curriculum School"), the hardwood floor (that Aspergian memory thing, right Tom?).
about the King Charles thing...I've had the thought more than once that if we actually had a mostly impotent king, we could dispense with all the dumb pomp and ceremony associated with the Presidency, which does nobody any good. I certainly find the unfussiness of English transitions from one party to the opposition party to be pretty fucking enviable. but for the last forty years or so, I've been convinced that a Parliamentary system works a lot better than what we have here; the Constitution was written when there were no parties. this shit sucks
I love your memory for that long ago, early in life stuff. I have a fair number of such early memories, myself. And I found out just a couple of years ago that I'm on the spectrum, and that my mother had actually diagnosed me some time in my first ten years--which I learned from the daughter of family friends, whose mother my mother had told, and her mother had told her. She told me after reading this story from my early life, telling me that my quirks were classical:
I also agree on the benefits of having a king (or queen) in the manner of our Mother Country as well as the advantages of a parliamentary system.
My parents were for Stevenson in all three of the elections in which he ran, but they did support Kennedy after he got the nomination.
And, another story. My mother was driving with me and my friend Ralphie in the car, during the 1960 election season. Ralphie's grandfather was a founder of Nordstrom's (and this was Seattle where the first Nordstroms was). Ralphie's mother was interior decorator to the well to do, including Ehrlichman. Both of my parents were trained economists, although my mother had switched to psych several years earlier, and I think her diagnosis of me was enabled by the psych dept at U of Washington--where she ws now a grad student--having the only expert on autism in the country. And I'd heard the story of how Nixon had called Helen Gahagan Douglas a communist.
And I said to Ralphie, "You know, Ralphie, you really shouldn't vote for Nixon because he called that lady in California something like an economist." My mother didn't laugh that often, but she LOVED telling that story and laughing about it.
I gave up on polls a long time ago for reasons that are spelled out in the article, namely, how do you really know the true affiliation of the respondents to any political party. There is no reliable means of checking whether or not the person on the line is who they say they are, so how can anyone trust their answers? Plus after the Hillary debacle in 2016, I feel the days of polling as a gauge of public opinion is over. You know, fool me once, etc.,
I saw this poll earlier today. It makes no sense. The majority think Trump should be arrested, and the majority prefer trump over Biden. WTF??? And then there’s CNN featuring the orange buffoon aka seditious traitor and rapist at a Town Hall. Anything for a buck, even if it costs losing our democracy.
Yeah - I'm guessing (didnt watch) the CNN thing went pretty much like the 60 minute one with the bimbo (apologize to all other bimbos) with 3 names!
My question would be WHY in the world is it necessary to give them airtime on anything other than faux "news"? That said, I did watch the 60 minute one - and STILL ask WHY??????
Was I responding to your comment earlier today, Karen RN? Someone was complaining that Both T and DeS were running ahead of Biden, and I said I hadn't seen anything like that. Well, anyway, whether that was you or not, this poll sounds like nonsense to me!
This reveal of the dangerously misleading ABC News/Washington Post Poll is another example of how flooded the country is with garbage and disinformation, including fascistic propaganda. We need to support and call upon the country's strongest investigative organizations and journalists, such as ProPublica, The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), Reveal – Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) , The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Jane Mayer, Olivia Carville, Bloomberg News, Jen Christensen, CNN, Sally Ho, Associated Press... our national newspapers and local papers: Los Angeles Times, Tampa Bay Times, Boston Globe. Pittsburgh’s The Public Herald... WE NEED JOURNALISTS MORE THAN EVER.
Would add The Seattle Times as a local, independent newspaper while still struggling to investigate local stories, they depend on other sources for national/international news. They have won awards for local investigative reporting.
Thank you, Kathe. You got my drift...it would make a difference to call and or write the papers that we read and or know about to encourage them to report on stories important to readers, including an issue, in particular, that you would like the paper to examine.
Yes, absolutely Fern we all need to support our local papers even if they are a shadow of what they once were, like our Tampa Bay Times. Write them often, even if they rarely publish your letters, to let them know where you stand and what you want them to cover. We need to hold onto every shred of democracy we can until some sanity returns to our nation. We are reaching a tipping point and how we show up now matters more than ever. Thank you.
Fuck and yes! Anybody and I mean anybody who pays attention to polls should not even possess a See and Spell.
They are not and never have been "scientific", they probably call landlines, if they call cells who here answers a cell phone if you don't know who it is? Who answered a landline after answering machines?
It is an insult. Who the fuck wants to get polled. I would if I could mind fuck them.
They drive the narrative that the msm wants you to follow. No facts provided, nobody throwing up their hands and say, " why is the fucking data so different then the assholes we call?" Because talking to bigoted fucks in Iowa is verifiable and reliable?
True story: back in the mid 80's I took a part time job with a local ( suburban Philly) company that wanted people to poll. All over the country, different topics. Had one job where I called people in San Francisco about local radio stations.
Well this company would also poll people about products they use they combined one contract with another. We asked the legit questions first, then something incredibly stupid.
One assignment I had was calling people in New York, admitted Democrats and asked them about Mario Cuomo as a presidential candidate. At the end of the five or six questions, I said I had one more that did not deal in politics.
I then asked ( swear to your gods) to men if they used a traditional hand held or electrical razor. I had people hang up, swear it was a prank. One guy said he bet his college friend put me up to it.
All the while the supervisor on a platform above us said we were forbidden to change one fucking word.
I quit less than two weeks later. So fucking stupid. I wasn't gonna be a part of it. Easy money but fuck that.
I've always held to a very simple principle; any poll that doesn't include my choice is automatically suspect. As I have never been polled I treat them all with equal scorn. How can a "majority" of 504 persons be accurately representative of over three hundred million diverse individuals? Yes, I know most of those don't, can't, or aren't allowed to vote but I believe the only real polls are those that count real votes. All others are self-serving propaganda exercises, often intended to sway results in the genuine elections through discouragement.
If they listed their pool as "a statistically insignificant number of random people we got to answer their various questions about who they are and what they believe without any sort of validation or verification" I'd buy it, and not extrapolate that into 37% of "people".
And if you have been polled, as I have, you quickly realize how slanted and downright stupid many of the questions are. More confirmation bias than actual inquiry.
I ignore polls for reasons you describe above. I also think that some pollsters (and media outlets) are using flawed data to leverage on behalf, not only of increased revenue for their businesses, but to to influence voters and to put their thumbs on the scale
I like to be polled if only to challenge the questions asked by the pollster, pointing out to them how their inquiries themselves lead to a preconceived conclusion. They start arguing with me; and at once “they’re busted”
Good question. Polls that are done by academic institutions, using lists of idenfied people with means of follow-up are usually good. Like Marquette, etc.
Excellent post, Tom - I have not seen the offending pile of offal, but I do not participate in phone polling, largely because most of the ones who have called me are obviously pushing one candidate or the other, judging from the slanted questions. And 18 months out? Even a legitimate well-designed poll would be pretty useless for checking the nation's pulse this early..... They must be desperate.
Thank you for pointing out a vastly under-recognized problem with polls — and your point that media companies should NOT be doing them is spot-on! If this kind of data collection were used to support some conclusion in any kind of professional or scientific journal, the statistics would get picked apart in a hot minute. Instead, this kind of poll is used to gin up headlines. So frustrating.
I detest the "horse race" aspect of these polls. Frankly, we all need real news not poll news, which is not news at all. I feel so frustrated when reporters resort to polls. All that tells me is that they have no ideas or creative thinking or critical thinking skills at all. The other thing that disturbs me is that reporting on the gop as though they are a party supportive of and wanting to strengthen democracy is absolutely nuts! What should be happening is critically examining what this growing group of authoritarians and worse want to do. Don't you just cringe when you hear someone say, "You may like his policies (!!!!this about djt) but you won't get those policies with djt." That most recently from fascist in waiting - little bill barr. So... everyone is getting the worst kind of reporting now. Maybe that's because the reporters, editors, and corporate media don't know how to do the critical thinking pieces that are needed OR they really don't want to go there because they're afraid. Newton Minnow just died - TV and TV news / Cable news is a wasteland for sure. It was bad back in the day and worse now.
Thank you Tom, it explains why this poll annoyed me. I’m so tired of media obsessing about President Biden’s age and fitness when it’s clear what an amazing job he’s doing under impossible circumstances. He’s championed historic legislation. He’s quietly rebuilding agencies that were decimated by Trump while restoring our international reputation. All with the GOP undermining him and lying at every turn. We are very lucky to have him as our president.
Diane Love your comments were
Extraordinarily informed and
Respect your knowledge and appreciate your response!Marsha
Pretty effing sick and tired of all the effing polls 18 months out! Pretty effing tired of MSM bloviating over Trump and DeSantis. They are poison to Democracy. DeSantis is an outright FASCIST! Trump is a huge orange blob of 💩! I'm just sick and tired of people wiping their feet all over the
Constitution and basically
calling our Founding Fathers
lame brains. Without them, we wouldn't have this country! We'd still be kissing
the new King Charles ring.
Want to talk lame brains? Look at the current GOP,
MAGAs; one and the same! A
bunch of wackos ready to blow it all up! Send even their
poorest constituents, I'm talking the poor WHITE people in their RED states,
to hell.
Black lives, Brown lives, Oriental lives matter? Not to
these lame brains. Heck, they
!don't even care what they do to each other.
You get what and who you vote for. OR in many cases,
what you DON'T vote at all
for.
Democrats better get off their asses NOW and start
pulling for Joseph Biden. Better quit their damned infighting and pull together!
Get Feinstein back on the job
or vote to retire her now. Better take off the gloves and
start taking it to them, every single time.
NO MORE PLAYING NICE.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!
I'd much rather have King Charles in charge than any of the GOPers that are running or thinking about running. And I'd rather have King Charles than RFK Jr.
But Biden is the best president of my lifetime, which began under Eisenhower, unless you want to be picky and note that Truman was president when I was conceived. (I love being picky about stuff like that. I'm one of those rare people that even knows the date of conception, but I digress!) Biden is the Man of the Hour, and as Victoria says, we need to be pulling for him. And for Democrats running for Senate and House!
I actually remember being almost four in November '52 and accompanying my father to the local school (PS 122 in Astoria). he asked me who he should vote for and (obviously I'd been hearing him yelling about Ike being hopelessly outclassed by Stevenson) I told him to vote for Stevenson. I remember EVERYTHING about that moment. the lights in the gym, the smell of the building (which I later attended for two years and which is now---YAY!!--a "Core Knowledge Curriculum School"), the hardwood floor (that Aspergian memory thing, right Tom?).
about the King Charles thing...I've had the thought more than once that if we actually had a mostly impotent king, we could dispense with all the dumb pomp and ceremony associated with the Presidency, which does nobody any good. I certainly find the unfussiness of English transitions from one party to the opposition party to be pretty fucking enviable. but for the last forty years or so, I've been convinced that a Parliamentary system works a lot better than what we have here; the Constitution was written when there were no parties. this shit sucks
I love your memory for that long ago, early in life stuff. I have a fair number of such early memories, myself. And I found out just a couple of years ago that I'm on the spectrum, and that my mother had actually diagnosed me some time in my first ten years--which I learned from the daughter of family friends, whose mother my mother had told, and her mother had told her. She told me after reading this story from my early life, telling me that my quirks were classical:
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-home-forum/2020/0805/heeding-her-invitation-six-decades-later
I also agree on the benefits of having a king (or queen) in the manner of our Mother Country as well as the advantages of a parliamentary system.
My parents were for Stevenson in all three of the elections in which he ran, but they did support Kennedy after he got the nomination.
And, another story. My mother was driving with me and my friend Ralphie in the car, during the 1960 election season. Ralphie's grandfather was a founder of Nordstrom's (and this was Seattle where the first Nordstroms was). Ralphie's mother was interior decorator to the well to do, including Ehrlichman. Both of my parents were trained economists, although my mother had switched to psych several years earlier, and I think her diagnosis of me was enabled by the psych dept at U of Washington--where she ws now a grad student--having the only expert on autism in the country. And I'd heard the story of how Nixon had called Helen Gahagan Douglas a communist.
And I said to Ralphie, "You know, Ralphie, you really shouldn't vote for Nixon because he called that lady in California something like an economist." My mother didn't laugh that often, but she LOVED telling that story and laughing about it.
Well said Victoria!
I gave up on polls a long time ago for reasons that are spelled out in the article, namely, how do you really know the true affiliation of the respondents to any political party. There is no reliable means of checking whether or not the person on the line is who they say they are, so how can anyone trust their answers? Plus after the Hillary debacle in 2016, I feel the days of polling as a gauge of public opinion is over. You know, fool me once, etc.,
I saw this poll earlier today. It makes no sense. The majority think Trump should be arrested, and the majority prefer trump over Biden. WTF??? And then there’s CNN featuring the orange buffoon aka seditious traitor and rapist at a Town Hall. Anything for a buck, even if it costs losing our democracy.
Yeah - I'm guessing (didnt watch) the CNN thing went pretty much like the 60 minute one with the bimbo (apologize to all other bimbos) with 3 names!
My question would be WHY in the world is it necessary to give them airtime on anything other than faux "news"? That said, I did watch the 60 minute one - and STILL ask WHY??????
Was I responding to your comment earlier today, Karen RN? Someone was complaining that Both T and DeS were running ahead of Biden, and I said I hadn't seen anything like that. Well, anyway, whether that was you or not, this poll sounds like nonsense to me!
I don’t know if it was me David. But I completely agree with you. This poll is complete nonsense.
This reveal of the dangerously misleading ABC News/Washington Post Poll is another example of how flooded the country is with garbage and disinformation, including fascistic propaganda. We need to support and call upon the country's strongest investigative organizations and journalists, such as ProPublica, The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), Reveal – Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) , The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Jane Mayer, Olivia Carville, Bloomberg News, Jen Christensen, CNN, Sally Ho, Associated Press... our national newspapers and local papers: Los Angeles Times, Tampa Bay Times, Boston Globe. Pittsburgh’s The Public Herald... WE NEED JOURNALISTS MORE THAN EVER.
Would add The Seattle Times as a local, independent newspaper while still struggling to investigate local stories, they depend on other sources for national/international news. They have won awards for local investigative reporting.
https://www.seattletimes.com/
Thank you, Kathe. You got my drift...it would make a difference to call and or write the papers that we read and or know about to encourage them to report on stories important to readers, including an issue, in particular, that you would like the paper to examine.
Yes, absolutely Fern we all need to support our local papers even if they are a shadow of what they once were, like our Tampa Bay Times. Write them often, even if they rarely publish your letters, to let them know where you stand and what you want them to cover. We need to hold onto every shred of democracy we can until some sanity returns to our nation. We are reaching a tipping point and how we show up now matters more than ever. Thank you.
The Miami Herald has been going some good work also.
Well this poll is Baldurdash. And, yes, it's ridicledokkle to worry about Biden's age and to not worry about DJT's age, and DJT's general nuttiness.
Furthermore, Biden has demonstrated a terrifically healthy and quick brain. One only has to listen to the State of the Union for that to be obvious.
Fuck and yes! Anybody and I mean anybody who pays attention to polls should not even possess a See and Spell.
They are not and never have been "scientific", they probably call landlines, if they call cells who here answers a cell phone if you don't know who it is? Who answered a landline after answering machines?
It is an insult. Who the fuck wants to get polled. I would if I could mind fuck them.
They drive the narrative that the msm wants you to follow. No facts provided, nobody throwing up their hands and say, " why is the fucking data so different then the assholes we call?" Because talking to bigoted fucks in Iowa is verifiable and reliable?
True story: back in the mid 80's I took a part time job with a local ( suburban Philly) company that wanted people to poll. All over the country, different topics. Had one job where I called people in San Francisco about local radio stations.
Well this company would also poll people about products they use they combined one contract with another. We asked the legit questions first, then something incredibly stupid.
One assignment I had was calling people in New York, admitted Democrats and asked them about Mario Cuomo as a presidential candidate. At the end of the five or six questions, I said I had one more that did not deal in politics.
I then asked ( swear to your gods) to men if they used a traditional hand held or electrical razor. I had people hang up, swear it was a prank. One guy said he bet his college friend put me up to it.
All the while the supervisor on a platform above us said we were forbidden to change one fucking word.
I quit less than two weeks later. So fucking stupid. I wasn't gonna be a part of it. Easy money but fuck that.
I've always held to a very simple principle; any poll that doesn't include my choice is automatically suspect. As I have never been polled I treat them all with equal scorn. How can a "majority" of 504 persons be accurately representative of over three hundred million diverse individuals? Yes, I know most of those don't, can't, or aren't allowed to vote but I believe the only real polls are those that count real votes. All others are self-serving propaganda exercises, often intended to sway results in the genuine elections through discouragement.
If they listed their pool as "a statistically insignificant number of random people we got to answer their various questions about who they are and what they believe without any sort of validation or verification" I'd buy it, and not extrapolate that into 37% of "people".
And if you have been polled, as I have, you quickly realize how slanted and downright stupid many of the questions are. More confirmation bias than actual inquiry.
I ignore polls for reasons you describe above. I also think that some pollsters (and media outlets) are using flawed data to leverage on behalf, not only of increased revenue for their businesses, but to to influence voters and to put their thumbs on the scale
I like to be polled if only to challenge the questions asked by the pollster, pointing out to them how their inquiries themselves lead to a preconceived conclusion. They start arguing with me; and at once “they’re busted”
Every student should be required to take a course in statistics and probability; and then a course in civics, “ how a bill becomes a law”
TC, thanks for illuminating more details about the polling cabal. More evidence to support my growing distain of any reporting based on polls.
Were they ever honest and informative?
Good question. Polls that are done by academic institutions, using lists of idenfied people with means of follow-up are usually good. Like Marquette, etc.
Excellent post, Tom - I have not seen the offending pile of offal, but I do not participate in phone polling, largely because most of the ones who have called me are obviously pushing one candidate or the other, judging from the slanted questions. And 18 months out? Even a legitimate well-designed poll would be pretty useless for checking the nation's pulse this early..... They must be desperate.
Thank you for pointing out a vastly under-recognized problem with polls — and your point that media companies should NOT be doing them is spot-on! If this kind of data collection were used to support some conclusion in any kind of professional or scientific journal, the statistics would get picked apart in a hot minute. Instead, this kind of poll is used to gin up headlines. So frustrating.
spot-on ... again!! Thank you! We need to shout this from the rooftops, for lack of a better meme!!
Fired up, and ready to go!! xx's
F the corporate media
I detest the "horse race" aspect of these polls. Frankly, we all need real news not poll news, which is not news at all. I feel so frustrated when reporters resort to polls. All that tells me is that they have no ideas or creative thinking or critical thinking skills at all. The other thing that disturbs me is that reporting on the gop as though they are a party supportive of and wanting to strengthen democracy is absolutely nuts! What should be happening is critically examining what this growing group of authoritarians and worse want to do. Don't you just cringe when you hear someone say, "You may like his policies (!!!!this about djt) but you won't get those policies with djt." That most recently from fascist in waiting - little bill barr. So... everyone is getting the worst kind of reporting now. Maybe that's because the reporters, editors, and corporate media don't know how to do the critical thinking pieces that are needed OR they really don't want to go there because they're afraid. Newton Minnow just died - TV and TV news / Cable news is a wasteland for sure. It was bad back in the day and worse now.