What polls can actually tell us
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Downloadnew poll has kamla Harris and Donald
Trump locked in a dead Heat latest Wall
Street Journal poll New Washington Post
poll out this morning a new exclusive
poll new polls have been released what
feels like every day this election cycle
Trump ahead by two Harris up by four
dead locked race a tied race and you
might be staring at ones like these
hoping it'll answer the question of who
will win this presidential election but
there's a lot more to these numbers than
meets the eye and there's a few reasons
they'll disappoint you if you rely on
them to predict the future it is still
anybody's
race these numbers are from the time
Sienna poll on October 25th which
suggests that 48% of American voters
plan to vote for kamla Harris while 48%
plan to vote for Donald Trump but of
course pollsters didn't survey every
American they surveyed a sample of them
today pollsters find their sample of
people to survey through a mix of phone
calls text messages online surveys or by
Ma and if you're thinking who even
answers those kinds of things the answer
is not a lot of people the response rate
for polling can be as low as 1 to 2%
which means pollsters have to reach out
to as many as 100,000 people to pull
1,000 people which is a typical sample
size for a national poll or 50,000
people to reach the roughly 500 people
typical for a state poll which sounds
small but that amount of people can
still be accurate at measuring the
opinion of a population if you read the
polls with a few caveats in
mind the first thing to know about these
numbers is there is a margin of error
which means this number is best thought
of as the center point in a range of
possible outcomes on average for a
sample size of 1,000 any number that's
3% different in either direction could
still technically be accurate and that's
simply because anytime you depend on a
sample to represent a larger population
there's a lack of precision a general
rule of thumb is that the bigger the
sample size the smaller the margin of a
error but there's only so much pollsters
can do polling more people is a lot more
costly and timec consuming which matters
because big news events can alter
people's opinions and ultimately
increasing the sample size can have
diminishing returns on accuracy and it
really starts to level off around 1,000
1500 2,000 interviews in terms of if you
keep putting in more effort are you
going to be more accurate the answer
becomes no pretty quickly and part of it
is because as a pollster you're either
either doing a phone poll or you're
doing an online poll and if you keep
interviewing thousands and thousands and
more people through that mechanism the
next 10,000 are going to be just like
the 2,000 people you already spoke with
this margin of error doesn't account for
other errors in the polling process
things that are harder to measure like
excluding certain demographic groups low
response rates among certain groups and
people misunderstanding the survey
questions or misreport ACC in their
opinions which means this 3% margin is
actually a low estimate the rule of
thumb is that you should actually double
it before a poll is released pollsters
have to do some work to make sure the
sample size looks just like the entire
population based on sources like the US
Census and voting files it's called
waiting for one some groups are more
likely to be reached by pollsters and
respond to them you have usually too
many college graduates often too many
women and maybe too many white adults if
you look at 2016 and 2020 Trump
supporters were more difficult to reach
in in surveys after data collection
there's ways in which your sample now
departs from being random and
representative now waiting is how a
pollster fixes that so if each
individual in a poll starts off with a
value of one waiting is when people who
are under represented compared to the
larger population get a value higher
than one while group group who are over
represented get a smaller value so if
our imaginary sample here was made up of
60% women and 40% men pollsters would
make the women count less and the men
count more to match the fact that about
52% of us voters are women while 48% are
men they repeat this for factors like
age and race and geographic location too
until each individual is weighted in a
way that makes the sample a good standin
for the larger population it represents
recently pollsters started consistently
waiting for Education too in the 2016
election some State polls underestimated
Donald Trump's support among non-college
educated people an oversight that
resulted in an election outcome few saw
coming waiting respondents based on how
their education level matches the
general population is intended to help
solve for that in the 2024 election
pollsters are increasingly waiting for
things like how people voted in past
elections and party affiliation to
to avoid any other ways they could be
over or under represented a candidate
supporters but the thing is waiting a
sample to match the general us adult
population is pretty simple through
sources like the US Census pollsters
know how many people are in each age
group or gender or racial group or
whether someone went to college but for
a poll to be a precise prediction of an
election outcome holsters are attempting
to wait against an unknown population
the people who will actually vote in the
future on election day there's no
guarantee that anyone surveyed ahead of
an election will actually vote some
polls make educated guesses counting
people more who say they are likely to
vote or who are registered to vote or
who have voted in the past but at most
only 2third of Americans of voting age
turn out to vote and pollsters can only
make informed guesses on who those
people will be polls are good for a lot
of things at capturing where the
population stands on big issues or
figuring out which states are really
going to be decisive in the ction
outcome but when the polls on voting
Choice are as close as they are in this
election the main thing they tell us is
simply that the race is close and the
only way we'll know who will win is to
pay less attention to the polling news
cycle and wait until the votes are
counted before you go I want to tell you
about vox's new membership program we
put this video together as quickly as we
could when we realize there was a lot of
curiosity and confusion and obsession
over the election polls
this kind of Journalism takes a lot of
work interviewing experts writing
editing and animating our membership
program is the best way to support this
kind of work both here on our YouTube
channel but also on vox's news site if
you join you'll get access to more
articles from vox's Newsroom and other
member only benefits I hope you'll
consider becoming a member by going to
the link on the screen or the one in the
video description below
Key Vocabulary (50)
toward
"Go to school."
belonging
"Cup of tea."
also
"You and me."
inside
"In the house."
specific
"That book."
A third-person singular pronoun used to refer to an object, animal, or situation that has already been mentioned or is clear from context. It is also frequently used as a dummy subject to talk about time, weather, or distance.
Used to show who is intended to have or use something, or to explain the purpose or reason for an action. It is also frequently used to indicate a specific duration of time.
A preposition used to indicate that something is in a position above and supported by a surface. It is also used to indicate a specific day or date, or to show that a device is functioning.
A conjunction used to compare two things that are equal in some way. It is most commonly used in the pattern 'as + adjective/adverb + as' to show similarity.
Used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing. It is the second-person pronoun used for both singular and plural subjects and objects.
A preposition used to indicate a specific point, location, or position in space. It is also used to specify a particular point in time or a certain state or activity.
Used to identify a specific person, thing, or idea that is physically close to the speaker or has just been mentioned. It can also refer to the present time or a situation that is currently happening.
A coordinating conjunction used to connect two statements that contrast with each other. It is used to introduce an added statement that is different from what has already been mentioned.
A preposition used to show the method or means of doing something, or to identify the person or thing that performs an action. It frequently appears in passive sentences to indicate the agent or before modes of transport.
A third-person plural pronoun used to refer to two or more people, animals, or things previously mentioned. It is also commonly used as a singular pronoun to refer to a person whose gender is unknown or to someone who identifies as non-binary.
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And why they sometimes surprise us in presidential elections. Support our work. Become a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/memberships Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications...
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