What polls can actually tell us
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- Опубліковано 1 лис 2024
- And why they sometimes surprise us in presidential elections.
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Polls seem to be dominating the news cycle this US election season, and they’re giving people cause to celebrate or despair depending on how their preferred candidate is faring in them. But if you understand what polls are actually capable of telling you, it might dispel any desire you have for them to predict whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be the next president.
We interviewed pollsters about their processes and explained the basics of how they turn small surveys into a way to measure the entirety of a voting population. No matter what measures pollsters take to make their samples as representative as possible, there’s a limit to how precise they can be. And, sometimes, those same measures can make the poll numbers go awry.
Sources and further reading:
Courtney Kennedy, who we interviewed for this piece and is in the video, co-wrote this helpful primer on how to read election polls:
www.pewresearc...
We interviewed Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts University, who co-wrote this blog post on weighting polls for this election:
goodauthority....
If you want to better understand the polling errors in the 2016 and 2020 elections:
www.nytimes.co...
www.nytimes.co...
fivethirtyeigh...
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In conclusion: The real poll is on November 5th.
Its on january 20th actually
@tauceti8060 i get what you mean but... no.
@@tauceti8060Jan 6th
Whenever trump tries to overthrow our government again
@@tauceti8060 The votes by the actual electors, that determine the winner Constitutionally, are cast on December 17th (this year, it varies along with the election day).
January 6th is the day those ballots are opened and processed by Congress, announcing the final result. January 20th is inauguration day, when the new President actually takes power, specifically at noon.
There are also a few other deadlines and procedures in between, involving the National Archives, who officially record the votes.
It's done this way to allow time for everything to be transferred and processed - originally they would have had to physically carry the ballots from each statehouse to the Capitol by horse.
So...morale of the story: Don't trust the polls and just go out and vote.
What does "trust the polls" even mean
@@biggieb8900 what do you think? It kind of obvious
@@biggieb8900 what do you think they mean
what i got is. dont trust but trust it.
@@biggieb8900 for example if polls say someone you like will win, you might get lazy and not vote since the polls already say they will win, which might lead to them losing in the end.
Younger generations don't answer random phone calls or texts.
Yup.
They also vote in fewer numbers, so....
Yes as the video said and explained, that weighting is used to account for that. Of course then comes the question was the weighting done well and based on valid data and arguments.
So weighting reflects that.
Did they account for Covid?
Theres a very accurate poll coming up that ends on Tuesday
Apparently it’s not if you ask the republican candidate
@@llcn829 Well according to him it's only accurate if he wins
@@frenchtoast4491Well apparently he called it inaccurate even when he won
Won't you agree that it's a really clever tactic of manipulation?
@@TheaverageQueerperson-vq4wv Considering that even his manager, who was in charge of finding flaws in election, came out clean saying it is not rigged.
My poll has Kim Jong Un at 120% chance to win the North Korean Presidency.
with a 20% margin of error
Only 120%??? Back when his father was in office he could easily hit triple that! Really goes to show how far their dynasty has fallen.
That's nothing. Putin has a 150% chance of winning in the next election
That seems low. I'm polling him at least 200%.
really? my polls had it kim 51%...
Vox's editing quality is outstanding.
Ocetober
And yet they take over 6 minutes to give us a simple message: early polls are unreliable, so there is no point in paying attention to them. Wait until after election day to find out the results. Start the video at 6:04
WHO LET TEH FAX SPITTER OUT?!🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Yeah but their journalistic quality has severely deteriorated. Remember when you used to hear from multiple professionals on a video's topic? I can't recall the last time one of their recent videos had more than one contributor.
@@blorpblorpblorp its probably because theyre trying to make the videos in shorter amounts of time since alot of them are time constrained- like this video.
I did a phone survey (not about candidates, but about a specific issue) and the guy doing the survey was really excited to find out I was in my mid-20s because we never pick up. I was just really bored that day. 😂
I LOVE EDUCATING PEOPLE ON MATHEMATICAL SUBJECTS!!! I LOVE SHOWING PEOPLE HOW TO INTERPERET SAMPLE SIZES!!!! BETTER INFORMED DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING YIPPPEEEE 🥰🥰🥰🥳🥳🥳
this isnt sarcastic lol i just think it's funny to type that in all caps
Polls can tell us what boomers who answer random numbers on their cell phones think
That's not entirely true. People of different background are still being polled, even if less for some backgrounds, and they sort them into representative categories by asking them basic questions like age group and income.
you obviously didn't watch the video...
There is more way in which polls are made than just calling random cellphone number. It's just the easiest and cheapest way to conduct it. But there are different ways in which polls are made, for example you can send Interviewer who goes to every 10th door on the left side of the road on the X, Y and Z Street in This or that town and ask people to write on paper which candidate they supports and then put it in secret box, so interviewers can't see who did you "voted" for. But this kind of poll making is much more expensive.
There's also the tendency that people under 30 are greatly under polled because they don't participate or will ignore or lie on them.
so basically u skipped the part about weighting, or u didnt watch at all which is more likely ngl
As a pollster, this is a an awesome video. Thank you for explaining this better than I ever could
Polling organizations after spending millions and millions of dollars:
"Yeah, this may or may not happen"
The stock market, marriage, childbirth, jobs, driving... etc. Nothing's guaranteed.
@@Adam-326Nonsense. Marriage is guaranteed. Like I guarantee you that I will never get married.
@j.a.weishaupt1748 1. That's a terrible attempt at an insult.
2. That's not even what I meant.
@@Adam-326 1. Well I was insulting myself…
2. I was joking.
@j.a.weishaupt1748 Touché
I have worked on polling statistical methods during my PhD days with one of the best pollsters in the country, who sadly passed away in 2019 - there are wayy too many factors to control to use any polling as a predictor - currently pollsters do not account mis-specified strata in the demographics, which is one of the largest sources in error
Which use cases ARE polls good for?
Controlling a narrative and controlling public opinion by trying to sway ideas abour the state of things@@obscurehero
Wow you sound like you're the life of the party 😂
True all science is junk😂😂😂.....I guess you argue with the doctors when you have cancer as to whether or not to try certain types of chemo because they are never 100% accurate cure rate. Polls are as scientific as mathematical theories.
@@pavelow235Dude what
imagine working around the clock spending tons and tons of money only to determine it’s a 50/50 shot that could go either way.
Yes and no. The only reason we know that this election will be a close one is because of polling. If we didn't have poll results, we wouldn't even be privy to that information.
The other thing pollsters do is actually poll by state. That is way more important national polling because only a handful of states each election determine the result. If those polls aren't close, then they can tell us who is leading the election. If those polls are close, then we know we're headed into a true coinflip situation.
Statistics in a nutshell
This answers my question about why are polls done for only like 500 people for a population of over 300 million. Good video Vox!
Yea, we have around 333 million people but in many cases the election is decided by far fewer. I think somebody said Biden won in the electoral college by around 43,000 votes in three states or some such. Gore lost by 537 votes in Florida. This is why I'm against the electoral college. It would be so much better if it was decided by everybody everywhere.
that's a good video right there
I work in survey research. Fantastic job of explaining this in under 10 minutes
. Going to show it to my colleagues and students (I also have taught a class in marketing research)
Take the context of the election out and this video still makes a very good analysis of primary research. Thank you, Vox.
either way. this is gonna be hype. We will either have our first woman president OR first convicted felon president. THIS ONE IS FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS !!!
This is absolutely inspiring to me, and to others like me. This could be a game changer for convicted felons everywhere.
@@mankytoes Just kinda funny how a felon can't vote but they can be the president lol
@@mankytoesThey were already allowed to run for office, though.
real, definitely hype
We already had a convicted felon president 😢
How is this election even close? What a shame.
" " - Both Parties
This result is inevitable. Each party picks a candidate who is most polarizing, while still having a chance of winning. This maximizes agenda.
It's not.
Who do you want to win?
That's the lovely thing about freedom of choice. Everyone thinks what they want.
@@theBear89451lmfao, Kamala and Biden have mostly centrist policies
Elect Hatsune Miku for President
SEKA
I'm thinking Miku Miku oo ee oo
@@NahnomachinesSon blue hair blue tie, hiding in your wifi
I'm writing in the Rock.
I remember people were unironically wasting their 2016 vote on Harambe
Omg THANK YOU for this, you answered many of my unasked questions about polls!! 👌🏻
the uncertainties are so large its basically created for entertainment value
It creates ambiguity and they don't take well for this kind of ambiguity and their efforts to try and find out makes a lot think its a sick joke..
It’s useful to tell which races are massive blowouts and which aren’t (good for outing grifters and detecting blatantly rigged elections), but anything past that is a bit iffy. And for anything as close as this presidential election, they’re not useful to pay attention to.
Population, weighting, sample size, representative sample, all things i learned in school and finally seeing a practical of those concepts here.
Can wait for my UA-cam to move on from this election next year
Vox editing quality is top notch. Respect for the editors.
*Poll #1:* Who's tired of hearing about polling? 😅
99% say no!
Nice explanation.
Polls don’t matter, but vote as if you’re losing.
Polling is a complete waste of everyone's time, there is only one poll that counts on election day.
but the new needs something to talk about
this is why I love and subscribe Vox ! Vox is beyond other media
Pollsters have also been “herding”. It’s not this close.
Don't forget about gerrymandering and in general the awful voting system either, one vote counts more than the other.
If I’m polled on the phone, I wouldn’t even be honest about who I support - I’d tell them I support the other candidate in the hope that a bad poll number would motivate more people on my side to eventually vote.
Or you could have them lose hope and not even bother voting because the race is already decided anyway
Childish and idiotic
Watching Vox introducing what polls can actually tell us in UA-cam is the biggest political activity I can participate as a Chinese citizen
Literally the only people I know who answer random phone calls or respond to mail are old and senile.
Another copy-and-paste response from someone who didn't even bother watching the video before posting. No wonder Trump is so close to winning if this is the quality of the youth we have in the USA
@ lol ok
this video, i think, is also very helpful towards literacy in graphs and surveys in general, not just election polls
What polls actually tell us, NOTHING. GO VOTE
America is like the Titanic. Too big to turn, too slow to react, in denial about sinking, and there aren't enough life boats for everyone.
Bot account. I have seen this comment on 3 different videos tonight by the same user.
you copied this comment
okay the weights portion explains why there were so many headlines about education, they weren't commenting on the polling
Polls also assume even turnout, which is not likely the case
I’m so scared bro 😭 I can’t take another trump term
Cry me a river progressive woke liberal !
@ dude your life must be so sad
I don’t see how anyone could say he was bad. I get you may not like him, the economy and life was great.
@@Randomhero3 maybe if you’re not part of any minority group ya
Bro im studying for my ATAR Math Methods exam and its legit just everything in this video lol
Good luck with your VCE exams!!!
Omg i've learned more about statistics and survey in this short video compared to my classes in college.
Amazing video!
Im voting for Daniel Larson
Voting in PA ! Lets go Dems
On election day !
Statistician here, the conclusion to just ignore everything and wait came out of nowhere. :P
I have never answered a poll myself, but a friend was called, before being asked which way they were planning to vote, the poller asked whether they knew that candidate A was planning to cut funding on issue X. ie. It was a loaded question. Polls don't tell us much.
Very informative. I was wondering where polling data came from generally and how it was collected. I’m glad I came across this video ✅
I have never been asked to take a pole in over twenty years. But I've been asked to donate for all parties Day after Day.
That is why Allan Lichtman proposes entirely different method based on how well the governing party is doing.
At this point, I just want the winner of the popular vote to also win the electoral college.
I don't think anyone would except it otherwise.
Let's unite to overcome Trump's divisive era on November 5, 2024, driven by our shared love for America. It's time to break free from the toxic cycle of hatred & intolerance that has come to define 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' - a phenomenon where rational thinking gives way to blind disdain!!!!!
i dont know anyone who has ever been polled
and i have been asking for years
3:18 It's called waiting.
vote blue
No vote for genocide
@@MoeMa4 🤣🤣🤣 go vote for trump then
vote red 👍
@@duckvs.chipanddale585Genocide funding and supporting Lebs can only blame themselves for Trump... Enjoy another 4 years of 🍊 man
@@duckvs.chipanddale585LIBS can only blame themselves for getting the 🍊 man again.
So basically statistics is like: Yeah this may or may not happen idk.
This video could have been 10 seconds long, they tell us nothing, VOTE
this was good
I never understood how a few thousand people could possibly represent millions or even hundreds of millions in the case of us elections but this video was very helpful at understanding why they can still be reliable despite the sampling error
TLDR- We guess a lot and almost never predicts who wins
It's a flawed way to predict election results, for sure, but still 100x better than trying to make educated guesses without polling data.
The problem isn't so much with polling, as with news outlets giving polls more attention than they deserve. Which, to be fair, is because they have little else tangible to report in until actual results start coming in.
@raizin4908 in the end its just a 50/50 chance.
@@danielkjm In this case it is, yeah. But it's not the pollsters' fault that it's a close race.
It's largely also because the US has a two-party system. In my country, which has proportional representation, election polls will often not accurately predict which party will be the largest or by how many seats they will win. However, they _do_ tend to accurately predict which out of two dozen or so parties will win many seats, which only a few, and which would be lucky to win a single seat. So you can narrow it down to a few parties who are likely to provide the head of the country in a given election.
In the US you already know from the start that Republicans and Democrats will each win close to 50%, and third parties will win nothing. So polls are much less useful to begin with.
But still, they don't say nothing.
The polls are fairly accurate, but when the margins are razor-thin they are not accurate enough to predict the outcome.
excellent video perfect to use in my ap gov't class to teach students.
Excellent basic statistics 📊 lesson!
I learned a lot of this in stats
So anyone smart enough to not answer a text or screen their calls aren't going to be represented. Harris for sure's gonna win.
IF you had a 1 time donation option I'd gladly pay that.
I think youth will turn out for Kamala and she will win popular vote but trump will win the electoral college
young men these days are actually (on average, its like a 53 47 split) trump supporters. so the youth cant save the dems
Exactly how the Conservatives want it.
No, I think she gets the electoral vote too but Trump will refuse to concede and try to get the SCOTUS to intervene claiming mass voter fraud again. He will eventually fail after a long and protracted temper tantrum.
Young men will not vote Kamala. They would have voted Bernie or Yang, but for Kamala absolutely not.
There is very little uncertainty about who will win the popular vote. In presidential elections, The Republicans have won the popular vote once in the last 35 years. It's not much of a question.
Vote for Harris PLEASE
Greetings from germany
How can you say that after what your country (and mine) are experiencing now? From the UK.
Shut up your not even from America, vote Trump
WHO NEEDS A GIRLFRIEND WHEN POLLS GASLIGHT YOU JUST THE SAME.😢
Well done
His grandfather was an immigrant from Bavaria. His grandmother was an immigrant from Scotland. His first wife was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, and his present wife is an immigrant from Slovenia. If immigrants cause evil, he's actually the prime example.
Were they illegal immigrants?
Spectator sports political parties in US 😮💛
Vox: "What Polls can actually tell us"
Poles: "We Saw War in Warsaw"
Whenever I see a poll the first thing I look for is how many people actually filled it out. I've really grown to hate how the media keeps using them as if they represent everyone's opinions. The only poll that matters is the one at the ballot box; if you haven't voted in this election yet, do so now!
That's what the video says, vote now.
(also, I suggest you cut off social media for a while a week before, and then after election day; except for chat groups, stay in touch with your friends and family)
If they’ve surveyed over 1000 people, the problem is definitely not that they didn’t talk to enough people.
As many people as legally possible should vote
Rep candidate winning the popular vote and has a historically high early voting voters. That else you need ?
6:15 We all know who Vox votes for
Great job 👏
The speed of my gamingmouse
Elect ME as president. I'm honest so I'll already tell you that I'll just care about my interests and the ones of the corporations paying me
Polls tell you nothing. We just love to speculate on the future in this country.
It would be interesting to go into depth on various polls. What was the raw data vs the weighed sample. How do polls today compare to polls in 2016 / 2020 / 2022? Why did those polls not get right? Have things been corrected? Over corrected? Are there other factors we are missing?
It’s a logical fallacy to assume because something has always happened in the past that it will always happen that way.
they did mention how they now weight against college education in polling due to Trump's win with the uneducated in 2016
I can't see many women in their 20s not voting. Then again I don't really understand most people.
I cant wait to stop hearing about polls come november 5th.
Polls are pointless, at best, and they are dangerous, at worst.
I'm so tired of this election already
Hi Vox
Maybe, that we are not as certain as we would like to think.
The key to understanding why Dems may be outperforming polls is that last part. What groups disproportionately didn’t respond to the US Census in 2020… who do those groups typically align with.
I got my first poll call about a month ago. The call disconnected me 3 times before connecting the 4th time. It worries me that it took 4 times to get my one poll questions… I almost didn’t answer.
Polls mean nothing. Be sure to vote! Take work off if you need to, get your friends to do the same!
For historical analysis: go with Prof. Alan Litchman's method
For on-the-go analysis: use the polls
alan lichtman is very overrated
@@duckvs.chipanddale585im convinced Alan straight up gets hate for being right all the time... calling him overrated for predicting elections to a T is such a short sighted take
@@tim3line Yet there's others who accurately predicted all the way down to the exact Electoral Vote that Biden got in 2020 (306) that predict Trump will win with 312 EC.
Let's also mention that Lichtman, even though his ego will never let him say it, is nervous of his prediction. He just said yesterday that he usually has "butterflies" in his stomach leading up to the election, expressing confidence in his prediction.
However, this time, he says he has a "flock of crows." He ain't too sure.
TLDR; very little, only tells you trends within this system
Polls tell you whatever the analysts want them to.
Who chooses to respond it’s important. If you cant account for that, the error is not statistical. It will be directional.
You'd get improved polls if pollsters accounted for CVD-19 decease rates in republican counties vs democratic counties but that's just imo
So the news, talking about polls from now until the election is just a waste of screen time. All we see are polls when we turn on the tv
I get the urge to feel the nation’s pulse.
But just go vote for your future. As the oldest democracy, its very sad to see turnout below 70%, especially from the younger generation(who are funnily the fan base for vox).
Go vote and then check if polls were right
"Dont trust the polls," legit just missing the point lol