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Bad Polls Are Sinking Democrats
Polls have been consistently wrong in one direction during the last few election cycles. The problems have NOT been fixed.
Something is rotten in the world of polling and it isn’t clear to industry experts how to fix it. Some doubt whether or not the problems inherent to modern polling methods are fixable.
Once the landline was replaced by the internet, it became much more difficult for pollsters, politicians and media companies to reach a truly random sampling of people.
Online polling hasn’t exactly proven a time-tested method. Not everyone spends the same amount of time on the internet and in online forums.
While 100% of journalists at the New York Times have active Twitter accounts, only about 22% of average Americans can say the same. Even the editor of the NYT is starting to warn employees about the dangers of over-reliance on their Twitter “echo chambers”.
Online polls in general tend to favor the college-educated, younger, white-collar, upper middle-class demographic. This demographic often spends a great deal of time online unlike some of their working-class counterparts. This demographic also largely skews heavily towards the Democratic Party.
On the other hand, there are some people who barely spend any time online at all, having little to do with…