Right now we are experiencing a tsunami of "Red Wave" polling.

Horst Storkebaum

@mastodonmigration
Is it somehow proven that polls showing one party is ostensibly losing make their potential voters disengage and lose their motivation to vote? Or is this just a hypothesis?

I for one would expect folks who want that party to win be especially motivated to vote by polls with such results.
@KamalaHarrisWin

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@horststorkebaum @KamalaHarrisWin

It's a really good question. It might seem that being "behind" would be a motivator, but Rosenberg says that this is not true at all, and in fact the most motivational narrative (and demotivational for the other guys) is leading from the start and continuing to run up the score. He uses a sports analogy (but can't find it right now), saying that leading by 10 at halftime and crushing them in the second half is much better than winning on the last play.

Horst Storkebaum

@mastodonmigration
I struggle with that sports analogy because in sports all the players or at least most of them have already played and given their best in the first half of the game / race. Whereas here more than 99% of people who read the poll results were not asked by the pollers. Wouldn't it be natural and logical for them to think "Wait a minute, you haven't asked me, I'll show you, who's gonna win" ?
@KamalaHarrisWin

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@horststorkebaum @KamalaHarrisWin

Makes sense. Never-the-less it does seem like politics professionals believe that constructing a 'winning' narrative is to their advantage. Why else would they be spending so much time, energy and money on doing so?

Ms. Missy

@mastodonmigration @KamalaHarrisWin

Yes, absolutely point out that polls are biased. The public needs to know. The public also needs to learn how to think critically.

I know too many Dems who don't look INTO the polls; they simply look at the numbers and they freak out.

We have to learn about polling bias and crappy weighting and sample sizes, etc.

My question here is: if there are so many red wave polls skewing public perception, where are the blue wave polls to counter disinformation?

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@MsMissy @KamalaHarrisWin

Good question. Guess we aren't playing this game. Since the averages are also in cahoots, they might reject the polling. Rosenberg characterizes it as an act of desperation, but why not fight fire with fire? Who knows.

amazing_bdw

@mastodonmigration @MsMissy @KamalaHarrisWin maybe the dem leaning pollsters don’t want dems to feel they have a comfortable lead. That could lead some dems to think it’s not necessary to vote. We don’t need anyone thinking it’s in the bag, vote!

Grassroots Joe

@horststorkebaum @mastodonmigration @KamalaHarrisWin
It definitely doesn't work like that. For starters, few people are particularly logical in how they think about the polls.
The reaction to bad polls is more often than not panic of one degree or another. It is especially important to let our activists and volunteers know about the game the GOP is playing.
To remind them and all of our voters that it is Democrats who have overperfomed the polls since Dobbs.
The model is 2022, not 2016 or 2020.

Bob Blaskiewicz of Plenty

@amazing_bdw @mastodonmigration @MsMissy @KamalaHarrisWin Why don't Dems flood the field with garbage partisan polls too? Certainly they have an equal and opposite interest in spinning the narrative, or at least one in canceling out the effect of GOP polls.

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@rjblaskiewicz @amazing_bdw @MsMissy @KamalaHarrisWin

It's a great question. Seems like the averages (certainly RCP and 270) are allied with the GOP pollsters and complicit in constructing the narrative, so they might just ignore Dem biased polls. But that's just a guess.