Pollster
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Posts: 3,758
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« on: September 09, 2022, 04:52:54 PM » |
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I've known Robert Cahaly for some time. Not well, and I've never liked him much, but I know him.
He is a credible person with real clients who pay him for his services. He knows polling and how to conduct a good poll. But if you know how to do something well, that means you also know how to do it poorly.
He is tight-lipped about his methodology for these publicly released polls. My suspicion is he is not consistent in how he is conducting them. Ultimately his objective is to release PR and fundraising tools for the Republican party, and he likely applies the methodological rigor (or lack thereof) to polls to accomplish that goal. His polls showing Republicans narrowly trailing in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (believable based on fundamentals and the averages publicly available) likely featured in plenty GOP fundraising emails and were likely more methodologically sound. His polling showing incredible Republican reach opportunities in places like NY and here was likely not as rigorous (but featured in fundraising emails all the same). Whatever he needs to do to get the result he needs.
But there's no way to know for sure since he shares zero details. It's possible he is making numbers up. It's possible he is seeing something none of the rest of us are. It's possible he is a partisan hack. It's possible he's ahead of his time.
It's also possible that a combination of the above are true, or none of them and I'm completely missing the reality.
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