U.S. Polling Is Pitiful, and It's a Danger to Democracy - William Spaniel

[TexasTowelie]

The 2024 polls were inaccurate once again. In the political discourse, this seems to be a source of humor and annoyance. However, it has very real consequences for candidate behavior. This video examines how parties develop their ideological platforms in the absence of good knowledge of where the bulk of voters lie on the political spectrum. We will see that this leads to polarized platforms, thereby eliminating one of the primary benefits of democratic institutions. Although it is not an immediate threat to the U.S. system, it is something that could become a problem if the inaccuracies get worse.

0:00 The Polls Were Wrong
1:42 Democracy and Political Parties
4:09 The Median Voter Theorem
9:17 Mystery Median Voters
14:22 How Mystery Medians Polarize Party Platforms
17:37 Why Democracy Stops Civil Wars
20:08 The Danger of Mystery Medians and Civil War
21:06 Why This Isn't an Emergency

[Meadowoak]

1. its what the media does with the polls, is the problem. anything for a horse race, and treating laughable outliers

as serious just for ratings is the problem.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Exactly...

[Prairie Gates]

2. NY Times last national vote poll was 49%-49% which will turn out almost dead on accurate

[Blue_Tires]

5. I just don't understand

If Harris was even or slightly above in ALL the battleground states, why she wasn't able to win a single one... I mean the law of averages says she'd get half of those, right?

[Blue_Tires]

3. I still want to know how

A highly respected pollster had Harris +3 in Iowa a week before the election, which made all the Dems on Twitter celebrate (I know it was legit because Donnie was absolutely losing his shit on Truth Social)... Most of the mainstream polls had Iowa as a toss-up and the most conservative Trump-biased pollster had Trump +6...

... And Trump wins Iowa +14?!

Are people lying to pollsters? I mean, how did EVERYONE get it so wrong?

[LisaL]

6. Shy Trump voter again?

People could be lying to pollsters. Also, most people don't pick up "unknown" phone calls anymore, so the sample of voters isn't random.

[Blue_Tires]

7. But I thought the demographics of people

Who would actually answer pollster calls heavily favor Trump??