2020 Poll Hype Thread

[Florida Man for Crime]

CNN tweeted out a statement saying the poll was canceled then immediately deleted it. Maybe they are trying to track down the issue instead of just trashing the whole thing.

They really should, that is ridiculous and a complete waste.

Find the problematic call or whatever and fix it.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Canceling a poll because one respondent didn't hear a candidate's name is ridiculous. Maybe the interviewer was tired and accidentally skipped over it, maybe they just mispronounced it, maybe the "grassroots supporter" misremembered all of it, who knows.

One (unverifiable!) error in one interview is not going to jeopardize the validity of the poll. This is the Register and CNN backing down over a non-issue because they're afraid of jeopardizing their relationship with the Buttigieg campaign — sets a dangerous precedent for future campaigns getting unfavorable polls canceled.

Yeah. Besides anything else, what reason is there to believe that this volunteer isn't simply lying (or, more delicately, misremembering)?

And why would CNN/Selzer/DMR just take their word for it (assuming they did not have some sort of actual verification)? If not, can every campaign have a volunteer report that future polls are wrong in some way, and they will just cancel the poll?

[Florida Man for Crime]

This really highlights a glaring weakness for Buttigieg I haven't see anyone mention yet all cycle. His name is hard to pronounce. Voters like a candidate with a smooth, silky name that just rolls off the tongue like Trump, Sanders, Biden or Warren. Buttigieg? No. Unfair, but true.

He could always have chosen to legally change his name. It happened on Ellis Island all the time.

Pete Buttigieg?

How about Pete Burton.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Canceling a poll because one respondent didn't hear a candidate's name is ridiculous. Maybe the interviewer was tired and accidentally skipped over it, maybe they just mispronounced it, maybe the "grassroots supporter" misremembered all of it, who knows.

One (unverifiable!) error in one interview is not going to jeopardize the validity of the poll. This is the Register and CNN backing down over a non-issue because they're afraid of jeopardizing their relationship with the Buttigieg campaign — sets a dangerous precedent for future campaigns getting unfavorable polls canceled.

If it is true that *IF* this was one individual who claimed this was the case, which is likely verifiable bcs I would imagine all polling calls are monitored, rather than multiple individuals, this is complete and utter BS.

Let's say I get a call from a polling organization in a critical state primary and sense my candidate is going down, I simply complain at the last minute and they cancel the release???



*** FREE the POLL ***

If they recorded all the phone calls, in that case they should be able to listen to the recordings and find verify whether Buttigieg was left off of other calls or not. So do that, take out any calls where Buttigieg's name was left out, and release the poll.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Is anyone going to leak the numbers?

They were already leaked. My prediction turned out to be 100% right! I will now accept my accolades.

[Florida Man for Crime]

If they recorded all the phone calls, in that case they should be able to listen to the recordings and find verify whether Buttigieg was left off of other calls or not. So do that, take out any calls where Buttigieg's name was left out, and release the poll.

In theory, yes, but not something you can do less than two hours until your big CNN special (after 5pm on a Saturday too). Not sure when the Register's print deadline is, but I'd imagine there's similar timing issues.

Sure, they wouldn't have it ready immediately. But if they have all the calls recorded, they could just stay up late and have all their staff listen through all the calls overnight, and publish the results tomorrow.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Does anyone seriously believe that an independent pollster would not release a poll because they are somehow trying to harm a candidate? Polls don't decide the actual results of an election and I'm not even sure they effect turnout. Some of the responses to this poll being canceled are legitimately crazy.

Polls normally don't have much of an influence on an election, but this is the Iowa DMR poll. If there is any exception to that it is definitely this. Voters do say that they look at that to figure out who is viable. So not releasing it is pretty damaging to whoever was doing well in the poll. My guess is they probably had Buttigieg losing support to Klobuchar, with Bernie ahead and Buttigieg below viability.

[Florida Man for Crime]

The fact that the whole thing was cancelled makes me think leaving off Buttigieg in one call was not an isolated incident (maybe someone screwed up and left his name off the script for the VI question), and this was the only way they could damage control.

That could be, but if so they should say so.

They need to be totally transparent about this if they want anyone to trust them in the future (or now).

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/PollsterPatrick/status/1223802157822021634

Why don't they let Selzer look into what was wrong?

#LetSelzerCheckThePoll

[Florida Man for Crime]

Maybe Pete just screwed Amy out of an Iowa upset.

Could be. The candidates that stood most to benefit seemed to be Klobuchar (who has been surging in other polls) and Bernie (who led the last DMR poll and has also seemed to be surging in other polls).

The candidates that stood the most to lose were Buttigieg and Warren, both of whom seemed to be losing momentum and shedding support.

[Florida Man for Crime]

So any updates as to if they will eventually release a poll at all, or if basically we have a few low quality polls to tide us over until we get the Caucus "entrance polls" come Monday PM?

I'm Wolf Blitzer and this is election night in the first in the nation Iowa Caucuses!

Oh, and wait.. the control room says. Wait, I'm sorry, the entrance polls are canceled. Bernie is leading by too much in them. No entrance poll this year.

[Florida Man for Crime]

On the other hand, Emerson has shown some very good numbers for Klobuchar this cycle. While I find their methodology to be lacking, I fully expect them(along with YouGov) to fill the oxygen taken up by the missing Selzer poll. If either have good numbers for Klobuchar(or any candidate for that matter), I assume the same effect could happen.

Actually, Buttigieg was 2nd in the most recent Emerson Iowa poll... which is just about the best result that Buttigieg has gotten recently.

Awfully convenient for Buttigieg.

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsReid/status/1223807687047159808

And it is confirmed.  It was a mistake on the pollsters part.  And it affected every candidate just the same.  It just so happened that it affect a Pete supporter who called and pointed out the problem.

I can totally believe that is the case.

However, they could have fixed the issue. If nothing else, one would have thought that they could make more calls tonight if they needed to throw out the calls from that one interviewer - remember this was only canceled at 8 CST, so they could have had 2-3 hours of calling. In practice probably quite a bit more, because I am betting they had quite a bit of advance notice about this.

- edit - sure, that would have meant they couldn't have released it on schedule, but why could they not have released it late (other than embarrassment - to which I say, get over yourselves)?

[Florida Man for Crime]

Nope, Buttigieg was 5th in the last Emerson poll.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/iowa-2020-sanders-solidifies-frontrunner-status-in-iowa-while-klobuchar-nears-viability

Side note, Emerson was closer to the final results in the 2016 Republican Iowa Caucus than Selzer. They did underestimate Sanders by alot though.

Ah, you are right. I was accidentally looking at the Emerson NH poll, which weirdly had Buttigieg in 2nd, rather than their IA poll.

[Florida Man for Crime]

I like Biden.  He's been my first choice from the beginning.  Please stop trying to tell me what I should think.

I thought I remembered you saying Klobuchar was your 1st choice?

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1225838433765072896

NH Democrats sound hyped for #GiantMeteor2020!

Interestingly, more voters age 45+ want a meteor strike than age <45. I guess the 45+ figure "I'll be dead soon anyway, so why not?"

[Florida Man for Crime]

No new Polls will be apparently released on any of the Sunday Talk Shows! Meh!!!!

At this point, a conspiracy of qualifying pollsters withholding the release of national polls to prevent Bloomberg from debating sounds somewhat plausible. There are only three days left!

If Bloomberg wanted to debate, he could simply finance some polls for the media.

I don't think he does particularly want to debate though, because he would be attacked and not be particularly good at defending himself. Better from his perspective to just run more ads instead, because he controls the content of his ads.