Maybe We Don't Need To Panic Over Polling
I’ve been asked why I don’t think this election will be quite the nail-biter being hyped by the media. Part of my answer, of course, is that the nail-biter narrative is being hyped by the media.
It’s usually a New York Times poll that triggers the nail-biting. Each poll is announced with great fanfare, in bold headlines, always with links to commentary that ripple through the rest of the media. The narrative is invariably that the race is deadlocked. Which happens to coincide with the neck-and-neck, both-sides-are-equally-bad, horserace political coverage in which they’re so deeply invested.
To get some return on that investment, they bend objective reality to make Trump appear reasonable and normal, even as he descends deeper and deeper into madness. The Times has shown that it will always, always sane-wash Trump to make the race appear close, even if it isn’t.
It’s not that their polls are wrong. They’re measuring something, after all. It’s just that what they’re measuring is not predictive, and it’s foolish to treat them as if they are.
The Times’ poll is but one of dozens, many of which are significantly more reliable — both for their methodologies and for their honest reading of the data — and many of which are telling a different story from the one the Times wants to tell. Especially in the battleground states.