For each of the 2024 7 swing states, the winner was <1% ahead on average, so what good are these polls if the results are going to be within their margin of error?
They need to either find a more accurate way, or... give up!
What they're good for is telling you that things are close. A tied poll or a 50-50 model can tell you that if your beliefs think it's 99% to go one way, you're probably overconfident, and should be more prepared for it to go the other way.
I cared about the result, because it was going to decide whether I settled down in the US or whether I wanted to find a different place to live. And because I paid attention to those polls, I knew that what happened was not particularly unlikely. I prepared early.
A lot of people I know thought it couldn't happen. They ignored the evidence in front of them, because it was distasteful to them (just as it was to me). And they were caught flat-footed in a way that I wasn't.
That's not the benefit of hindsight: I brought receipts. You can see the 5,000 equally-likely outcomes I had at the start of the night (and how they evolved as I added the vote coming in) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11nn9y9fusd-6LQKCof3_... .
We had a pretty weird year in general. Harris did bad across most safe states but seemed to do much better than her average in swing states (not enough to win them, but much better than she did in non-competitive states)
Many election models rely heavily on historical correlation. States like OH and IN might vote quite differently but their swings tend to be in the same direction.
The weirdness this year (possibly caused by the Harris campaign having a particularly strong ground game in swing states) definitely challenged a lot of baked in assumptions of forecasts.
rachofsunshine|11 months ago
I cared about the result, because it was going to decide whether I settled down in the US or whether I wanted to find a different place to live. And because I paid attention to those polls, I knew that what happened was not particularly unlikely. I prepared early.
A lot of people I know thought it couldn't happen. They ignored the evidence in front of them, because it was distasteful to them (just as it was to me). And they were caught flat-footed in a way that I wasn't.
That's not the benefit of hindsight: I brought receipts. You can see the 5,000 equally-likely outcomes I had at the start of the night (and how they evolved as I added the vote coming in) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11nn9y9fusd-6LQKCof3_... .
culi|11 months ago
Many election models rely heavily on historical correlation. States like OH and IN might vote quite differently but their swings tend to be in the same direction.
The weirdness this year (possibly caused by the Harris campaign having a particularly strong ground game in swing states) definitely challenged a lot of baked in assumptions of forecasts.
dionian|11 months ago