• TheDannysaur@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    They’re not perfect, but they’re not complete bullshit.

    I can’t explain it all in a comment, but, like most things, there are good polls and bad polls. Saying polls are bullshit is like saying car mechanics are incompetent because some of them are.

    If you read up on polls and their methodology, and read more then headlines, you can start to discern good ones from bad ones.

    Most people don’t realize margin of error and how close elections are. There hasn’t been that large of polling errors in the last several elections. 2016 was larger than normal, but still within pretty explainable ranges.

    Good polls are worth paying attention to, and proclaiming they are all bullshit is just a flatly bad take. There are a lot of shit polls that are politically motivated to make candidates look good or bad, but there are good pollsters doing good work. But you have to know what to look for. Not all polls are equal.