2024 election polls were wrong. Every single one had it either at a coin-flip odd between the two, or Kamala leading 1 point. It was 2 months ago, this isn't hard to remember.
How it came out, in fact, was Trump winning popular vote with 2 million more votes than kamala, and almost 90 more electoral votes. That's FAR from coin-flip odds, and don't even get me started on the swing state polls, with Trump winning every single one.
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Yeah, the biased nature of most people not wanting to publicly sympathize with an early political vigilante WOULD make polls regarding him worse, despite the fact they do. I completely agree with you.
Trump won the popular vote by 1.5%, which is a few percent off from the polling average. If the polling on Mangione is similarly off by a few percent (within the margin of error), it hardly affects our interpretation of the results.
Give me a break. The polls weren't based on who will get the popular vote. They were based on electoral votes, with swing states polls being that exact toss-up (you can check them again).
He ended up winning every single swing state, muuuch farther than the projections of ANY polls that was getting time-of-day.
Even if you want to die on that purposely misinterpreting hill, it still shows they were inaccurate and unreliable.
Let’s take PA since it’s the tipping point state. Polling average had Harris at a 0.2% lead. Actual result was Trump with 1.7% lead. That’s a 1.9% error.
So, “muuuch farther than the projections of ANY polls” is wrong.
Correlated error between states is expected, and not relevant (ie. if you think Mangione poll is affected by this few % correlated error, again it doesn’t change the interpretation).
Overall, election results tend to come pretty close to the polls. They are often wrong by a little bit, occasionally by a lot, which is what you’d expect based on the theory of polling and statistics. The conclusion is asking a large random sample of people what they think, using the best methodologies the polling industry has developed, is a pretty good way of finding out what most people think (within a few % margin of error), certainly more objective than a vibe check of your personal echo chamber. If your argument depends on completely dismissing polling results, you’re probably wrong.
I thought you were someone else, but now that I know you're not - I want to make something clear: I think that social desirability bias affected the answers of respondents much more [1].
To be clear, that's not the MARGIN of error in those statistics, but rather the difference between predicted and actual. In a five-tier scale, separated between groups, there is already statistical manipulation by having fewer respondents per-category, and therefore a higher margin of error between each. A margin of error even in low single-digit percentages can completely compromise the outcomes of data presented in this fashion.
How wrong do you believe this poll is? Can you use some methodology to come up with a modified margin of error that encompasses what you believe to be more realistic?
"How wrong" is something I can't quantify. It’s tough to pin down a single “modified margin of error,” but I’d say it’s bigger than what the poll shows. Multi-tier questions automatically have smaller sample sizes per option, which inflates the margin of error. Throw in social desirability bias (people not wanting to admit an unpopular opinion) and you get systematic skews on top of random error.
>2024 election polls were wrong. Every single one had it either at a coin-flip odd between the two, or Kamala leading 1 point. It was 2 months ago, this isn't hard to remember.
>How it came out, in fact, was Trump winning popular vote with 2 million more votes than kamala, and almost 90 more electoral votes. That's FAR from coin-flip odds, and don't even get me started on the swing state polls, with Trump winning every single one.
It sounds like the polls were off about the popular vote by a few percentage points at most.
That meant a lot in the US election context, because the candidates were neck-and-neck.
It wouldn't change the basic picture of Mangione's support in the YouGov poll.
Why do I see so many basic reasoning errors like this on Hacker News? I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent forum with intelligent posters.
>"It wouldn't change the basic picture of Mangione's support in the YouGov poll."
My single sentence underneath the horizontal divider in a sub-thread that primarily diverted to discussing the 2024 Election polls, and their accuracy, addresses that. Why didn't you quote that anywhere in your reply?
>"Social desirability concerns can be seen as a special case of the threat of disclosure, involving a specific type of interpersonal consequence of revealing information in a survey—social disapproval. The literature on social desirability is voluminous, and it features divergent conceptualizations and operationalizations of the notion of socially desirable responding (DeMaio, 1984). One fundamental difference among the different approaches lies in whether they treat socially desirable responding as a stable personality characteristic or a temporary social strategy (DeMaio, 1984). The view that socially desirable responding is, at least in part, a personality trait underlies psychologists’ early attempts to develop various social desirability scales. Though some of these efforts (e.g., Edwards, 1957; Philips & Clancy, 1970, 1972) recognize the possibility that social desirability is a property of the items rather than (or as well as) of the respondents, many of them treat socially desirable responding as a stable personality characteristic (e.g., Crowne & Marlowe, 1964; Schuessler, Hittle, & Cardascia, 1978). By contrast, survey researchers have tended to view socially desirable responding as a response strategy reflecting the sensitivity of specific items for specific individuals; thus, Sudman and Bradburn (1974) had interviewers rate the social desirability of potential answers to specific survey questions.
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>Paulhus’s (2002) work encompasses both viewpoints, making a distinction between socially desirable responding as a response style (a bias that is “consistent across time and questionnaires”; Paulhus, 2002, p. 49) and as a response set (a short-lived bias “attributable to some temporary distraction or motivation”; Paulhus, 2002, p. 49).
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>A general weakness with scales designed to measure socially desirable responding is that they lack “true” scores, making it difficult or impossible to distinguish among (a) respondents who are actually highly compliant with social norms, (b) those who have a sincere but inflated view of themselves, and (c) those who are deliberately trying to make a favorable impression by falsely reporting positive things about themselves"
Why is it that so much online discussion of Mangione's actions is supportive?
Wouldn't social desirability bias predict that people would be reluctant to support Mangione's actions in any way which might be traced back to them personally?
Hypothetical evil plutocrats would be far more likely to dig up your social media history to get your take on Mangione than somehow obtain your response to a telephone poll.
The supportive online climate suggests that supporting Mangione could even be more socially desirable. There is social pressure to support him.
In any case, your Harris/Trump example suggests that social desirability effects should be on the order of perhaps 2-3 percentage points in a poll. So it wouldn't represent a drastic change to the overall picture.
My theory: Mangione cleaves society along an "extremely online" vs "touch grass" axis.
The passionate social media addicts, who see conspiracies and exploitation everywhere, support Mangione.
The "touch grass" people understand that healthcare is a systemic problem which requires systemic solutions. Political murders undermine the social contract, increase the likelihood of subsequent political murders, and contribute to the unraveling of society.
The "touch grass" people are underrepresented in online arguments, but well-represented in a randomized poll.
>"Wouldn't social desirability bias predict that people would be reluctant to support Mangione's actions in any way which might be traced back to them personally?"
I think you inadvertently answered your question with the preceding question to this one. Because it's harder to trace back a lot (not all) of individuals from their online identities to personal identities, they're probably more willing to show support for Mangione there, than in places that trace back to them directly.
Who are "touch grass" people? What are you talking about?
How it came out, in fact, was Trump winning popular vote with 2 million more votes than kamala, and almost 90 more electoral votes. That's FAR from coin-flip odds, and don't even get me started on the swing state polls, with Trump winning every single one.
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Yeah, the biased nature of most people not wanting to publicly sympathize with an early political vigilante WOULD make polls regarding him worse, despite the fact they do. I completely agree with you.