Polling by right-leaning firms has exploded this cycle. Maybe they want to be accurate—or maybe they’re trying to create a sense of momentum for Donald Trump.
  • Snailpope@lemmy.world
    14·
    7 days ago

    I’ve been wondering this for a while, wouldn’t you want your candidate to poll poorly so more people who otherwise wouldn’t vote and also prefer your candidate go out and vote? Wouldn’t higher polling numbers cause people to rest assured their candidate will win and then not worry about voting? Obviously polls mean nothing, go out and vote

    • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
      29·
      7 days ago

      They want to invent higher polling numbers so that when/if Trump loses, they can point at the polls as proof the election is rigged against him.

        • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 days ago

          A loss, coupled with his recent exhaustion, will for sure lead to narcissistic collapse. It’s going to be wild.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
          4·
          7 days ago

          Another thing is that people like to be on a winning team. People will avoid voting for someone they expect to lose. It’s not going to affect the bulk of people, but anything that reduces low turnout voters actually voting is a win for the other side.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      121·
      7 days ago

      Human variation…

      You’re assuming everyone thinks like you, but they don’t.

      Some just like to be “winners”.

      They wouldn’t want to vote for trump if he loses, but if they think he’ll win they’ll jump on the bandwagon and vote.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          7 days ago

          Yeah, there’s fundamental brain differences that allow someone with literally a few minutes of training to predict political leaning like >70% (maybe it was even >80%) of the time from nothing but a brain scan…

          Which might not sound that high, but it’s fucking huge.

          It’s why the things that motivate conservatives (fear of the unknown) isn’t what motivates progressives (empathy and solid plans for the future).

          Republicans know their voters, they give them what they want: a Boogeyman to label as the enemy.

          Dems however keep ignoring their base because “who else will they vote for?” and trying to court Republican voters using strategies that either piss of the base (being pro border wall) or just not be effective on conservative voters (talking about how trump will hurt others).

          If you understand basic sociology/psychology, it’s clearly the wrong path for the Dem party. Unfortunately the DNC only prioritizes how much donations someone can bring in when picking people for DNC leadership positions. And the people who prioritize money, rarely go into either sociology or psychology.

          It legitimately shouldn’t be this hard to beat fucking trump

          The unelected people in charge of the only other option just don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. They just keep appealing to the wealthy to increase their donation amount because it’s literally the only metric people are judged on at the DNC.

          We desperately need to fix things before 2028, but if Kamala wins she appoints the head of the DNC, and if she loses Biden’s pick stays.

          • Snailpope@lemmy.world
            1·
            7 days ago

            Yea,I know very little about phycology and nothing about sociology, so this was very enlightening.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
    48·
    7 days ago

    This has already been debunked, but almost all models and polling have Trump as the favorite, and this was an obvious outcome of trends that were apparent in early September. Trump, right now, is winning this election and has been for a solid five weeks and a squishy 6 weeks. You can not like it, and you shouldn’t, but pretending that Harris is winning when she isn’t doesn’t change the fact that she went from trending to winning the majority of swing states, to trending to losing the swing states, too just plain losing them over the course of two months. Not everyone has the liberty to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to bad news, least of all, a blitz political campaign when there is this much on the line.

    It’s just what it is. It seems like a direct consequence of the shift towards focusing on Republican voters and courting neoconservatives: because that largely has been the focus of the campaign. It’s also not clear to me that there is time to even pivot. As fast as the news moves, it really does take almost two weeks for changes in a race to make there way into polling. Frankly, the convention and post convention campaign have been a disaster. There is no good reason to be polling this badly against someone as deeply unpopular and genuinely dangerous to democracy as Donald Trump. But Harris quite literally has pivoted away from the Democratic base to court “Moderate Republicans”, with this insane idea that some how she’ll move enough people away from Trump to win this. With ever “moderate Republican” (as if that’s even a thing) she gains, she loses two anti war Democrats.

    You can’t have bipartisanship with a party that doesn’t consider humans human, and it’s central to the DNCs continuing insistence on being a right wing party, when their voters are significantly further to the left of those determining party policy. Bipartisanship with an anti-abortion party is unacceptable. Bipartisanship with a pro genocide party is unacceptable (or being one, for that matter. Bipartisanship with fascism is unacceptable. Democrats needed to have “done better” in this election cycle in the sense that they needed to take wide open the moral high round on so many issues like abortion, race and gender, freedom of speech, economic well being, health care, and genocide, and they simply chose not to.

    It will be a literal miracle if Kamala actually wins enough swing states with the numbers obviously favoring Trump ( it’s not fake news, we’ve been over this, it’s just that Kamala abandoned the base to court Republicans). It will be two miracles if the campaign can also then navigate the post election court cases, since so much has been left on the table by the campaign, we can expect any wins to be extremely close.

    The only other option I see is to take the advice of Vance and not certify.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    522·
    7 days ago

    Obviously…

    But any polling aggregator that blindly treats every poll the same isn’t worth listening to.

    I mean, we literally know that Musk’s door knockers are just spoofing gps so they don’t have to go door to door, and are filling out the surveys as saying everyone already voted early for trump.

  • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
    381·
    7 days ago

    Who knows, seems likely to me, but in any case the early vote numbers /breakdowns stress me out. If Trump wins the election, I’m going to have to just get off social media, I’ve already had to delete YouTube, for my mental health and just live without thinking about how bad the world is getting around me.

    Edit: Do not be discouraged by my doom and gloom, I’m Canadian, I can’t vote, you can so go do it. Do it now if you can.

    • CheeryLBottom@lemmy.world
      7·
      7 days ago

      I’m an American and I live in Canada and can vote (already did)

      All of this stresses me out too. I feel like I’m like,“Kilroy was here” and peering over the wall, just watching

      What will hurt is having to stay off Lemmy because I won’t be unable to resist the temptation to look

    • PlasticExistence@lemmy.worldEnglish
      521·
      7 days ago

      Absolutely do not believe the polls because every single time people show up in huge numbers to vote, Republicans lose!

      Just vote, everyone. Don’t avoid it because you think it won’t matter. It will! Republicans want you to think they’ve already won. Prove them wrong!

      It all went down in mid-September, at a time when the FiveThirtyEight polling averages showed the slightest of leads for Kamala Harris in North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump. Her edge was short-lived: The averages moved back to favoring Trump. And Quantus Insights, a GOP-friendly polling firm, took credit for this development. When a MAGA influencer celebrated the pro-Trump shift on X (formerly Twitter), Quantus’s account responded: “You’re welcome.”

      Most prominently, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg and data analyst Tom Bonier, who were skeptical of such predictions in 2022 and ultimately proved correct, are now warning that all this is happening again.

      The Republicans got their asses handed to them in 2022, and (unfortunately) people don’t normally show up in big numbers for a midterm election. This is a presidential election, so you can expect it will be an even bigger turnout.

      Don’t get discouraged. All you have to do is vote. If Trump doesn’t get elected, he can’t weasel out of his legal problems, which is his only way out of them.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
        20·
        7 days ago

        Thank you. I’m getting very tired of the sudden influx of doom and gloom when the actual data points to a likely Harris win and bullshit from Republican pollsters.

        • PlasticExistence@lemmy.worldEnglish
          20·
          7 days ago

          Harris is running on a message of looking forward to the future and on a message of hope. All research shows that actually motivates people better than fear, which is all the republicans have.

          Harris is a likable person without the baggage that Hillary carried in 2016, and she’s not an entitled white woman. All the major news outlets are owned by billionaires whose sociopathic pursuit of hoarding wealth is best served by the republicans, so of course all of them are going to spin everything to discourage democrats from voting.

          We have an awful, awful lot of damage to address in the USA, but we can’t even begin to fix a broken system with republicans in power. I have plenty of my own criticisms for the democrats, but unfortunately this is the situation. They must win this election. We will have to reform the party in the coming years if we want to see any actual change. That starts with making sure republicans lose by voting. I’ll be going after work to vote early tomorrow.

          • kescusay@lemmy.world
            5·
            7 days ago

            Hey, I hear you. And given the threat Trump poses, it’s important to stay vigilant.

            But I genuinely believe we’ve got this. Trump will never be in the White House again.

            And early voting data actually looks terrific for Harris. Early turnout in Democratic-leaning areas all over the country is unprecedented.

            • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
              4·
              7 days ago

              I actually forgot all about that red wave play until you brought it back up it honestly helps a bit.

              • kescusay@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                7 days ago

                Yep, they’re trying it again. Flood the zone with shitty polls from fly-by-night pollsters, make it look like a “red wave,” and try to turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If it works, they look like geniuses. If it fails, they claim rigging.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        6·
        7 days ago

        If Trump doesn’t get elected, he can’t weasel out of his legal problems, which is his only way out of them.

        In normal times you’re absolutely correct. However, this isn’t a traditional election. I think it’s pretty clear that they’re not planning on letting something like losing the election stop them from gaining power. November 5th is not the end of the war it’s the start of the next battle.

        You are right that voting is the best thing people can do to help us win between now and then though. We just need to be prepared to do more. Every American needs to consider the question “how much am I willing to risk to maintain democracy?” because it is more likely now than at any point in our lives that more will be required of us.

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
          4·
          7 days ago

          I’m not worried about that. They’ll have an even harder time rigging things in 2024 than in 2020. First, their prior strategy was completely cut off thanks to new federal legislation. Second, don’t underestimate the effect of Biden currently sitting in the White House. Most of the stuff Trump tried to pull in 2020 was only possible because he was sitting in the Oval Office. For example, the capital building was largely unguarded precisely because Trump refused requests for troops and additional security. This time, the capital building will be a fortress surrounded by thousands of soldiers armed to the teeth. If any MAGA asshats try to storm the capital again this time, they won’t have to worry about prosecution. They will simply not be leaving there alive.

          People like to doom post about the Supreme Court, but in all practical reality, there is only so much they can do. Yes, if there is actually a legitimate question in an extremely close election, they can put their thumb on the scale and put their guy in power. That’s what happened in 2000. In 2000, things were razor-close, and there were some legitimate open questions about how to count ballots, questions of such triviality that no one had bothered litigating them before. And because Florida was within a few hundred votes, and because the Electoral College was basically tied, that distinction mattered.

          But that really is the limit of how far the Supreme Court can go in putting their thumb on the scale. People like to Doompost and handwring about how, “omg, SCOTUS is just going to rule that Trump wins, even if he loses in a landslide.” I call bullshit on that. There is a word for that kind of comically farcical ruling - a coup by another name. If the court issues a ruling that just says, “lol, fuck democracy, our guy wins”…well we’ve abandoned all pretense at that point. And at that point, Biden can simply get up there and say, “the justices have completely abandoned democracy and have attempted to stage a coup from the bench. They are engaged in treason against the United States, and I have had them arrested, and they will be tried by military tribunal for their crimes against the Republic.”

          I’m sorry, but people do not fuck around when it comes to presidential elections. A coup from the bench is as treasonous an act as storming the capital. Again, they do have some wiggle room. If the election is essentially a tossup, down to a few hundred votes in a single state? Sure, then they can choose a winner. But if it would require a comically biased, utterly farcical ruling? Well at that point what matters is who is currently holding the guns. And that will be the military led by Joe Biden. If they attempt a coup from the bench, they can be charged with treason, hauled in front of a military tribunal, and be dealt with quite quickly.

          They realize that this is actually a possibility if they were to attempt a judicial coup. And they would much prefer their current cushy jobs to playing with that kind of fire. Again, if it’s close, they can put their thumb on the scale. But as a practical reality, SCOTUS can’t just completely overturn the results on an unambiguous election without gambling with their very lives. Nations do not fuck around when it comes to this kind of question of transfer of power.

          • krashmo@lemmy.world
            2·
            7 days ago

            I think what you’re saying is a reasonable take. I’m just not sure that’s how unreasonable people see the situation and that’s what we’re dealing with. So much of this is uncharted territory that I don’t think we can rely on how things should play out.

        • TreeGhost@lemm.ee
          1·
          7 days ago

          Absolutely, but for now the best thing we can do is show up and vote and call out these misleading polls for what they are. The larger the margins are, the harder it gets to try to cheat through the courts. Of course if there is a big blue wave, we’ll hear that it itself is evidence that voter fraud happened, in which they will justify with these slanted polls.

          I think the other silver lining is that when it comes down too it, Trump doesn’t have a large enough base that is willing to stick thier own necks out in a misguided attempt to “save” democracy. Trump.didn’t get the numbers he wanted on January 6th and he won’t get them this time either.