2016 Postmortem

scheming daemons

(25,487 posts) Wed Oct 12, 2016, 01:55 PM Oct 2016

Want to know why the LA Times/Dornsife poll has been an outlier all election season? [View all]

There is a 19-year-old black man in Illinois who has no idea of the role he is playing in this election.

He is sure he is going to vote for Donald J. Trump.

And he has been held up as proof by conservatives — including outlets like Breitbart News and The New York Post — that Mr. Trump is excelling among black voters. He has even played a modest role in shifting entire polling aggregates, like the Real Clear Politics average, toward Mr. Trump.

How? He’s a panelist on the U.S.C. Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak poll, which has emerged as the biggest polling outlier of the presidential campaign. Despite falling behind by double digits in some national surveys, Mr. Trump has generally led in the U.S.C./LAT poll. He held the lead for a full month until Wednesday, when Hillary Clinton took a nominal lead.

Our Trump-supporting friend in Illinois is a surprisingly big part of the reason. In some polls, he’s weighted as much as 30 times more than the average respondent, and as much as 300 times more than the least-weighted respondent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old-illinois-man-is-distorting-national-polling-averages.html

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Want to know why the LA Times/Dornsife poll has been an outlier all election season? [View all] scheming daemons Oct 2016 OP

What the heck Johnny2X2X Oct 2016 #1

Many polls weight responses if they are unable to hit targets of certain demographics. Ace Rothstein Oct 2016 #3

That's what Trump means when he says Happyhippychick Oct 2016 #2

I read the article but cannot understand why they have a poll that they know is inaccurate? UCmeNdc Oct 2016 #4

They didn't do it on purpose, and the design is defensible. DanTex Oct 2016 #10

Being weighted 30 times more than the average respondent doesn't seem defensible muriel_volestrangler Oct 2016 #13

The fact that there is that much overweighting is taken into account in DanTex Oct 2016 #15

Or you recruit a few more people in the required categories muriel_volestrangler Oct 2016 #19

If that can be done without compromising the randomness of the sample, then yes. DanTex Oct 2016 #20

Here's how they present it: muriel_volestrangler Oct 2016 #21

Thanks. DanTex Oct 2016 #22

Not completely... Adrahil Oct 2016 #23

Well, all designs are vulnerable to a bad sample. DanTex Oct 2016 #24

That's true to an extent, of course... Adrahil Oct 2016 #26

I don't agree that it's doubly vulnerable. DanTex Oct 2016 #28

Not they are not stuck with it due to weighting... Adrahil Oct 2016 #30

Agreed about the "previous voting" weighting. DanTex Oct 2016 #31

lol, well the overall flaw with that poll is they just poll the same group again and again... qdouble Oct 2016 #5

Not a flaw. Feature that makes it a DIFFERENT kind of poll: a Tracking Poll. Bernardo de La Paz Oct 2016 #6

It's clearly a flaw in it being presented as being representative of popular opinion when it is not. qdouble Oct 2016 #8

Yes & NO. The poll is NOT flawed. The media are flawed (or worse). . . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz Oct 2016 #9

That's reasonably true.... Adrahil Oct 2016 #12

Good points. . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz Oct 2016 #14

Lie, Damned Lies, and Dark n Stormy Knight Oct 2016 #7

Nate Cohn is pretty awesome. Adrahil Oct 2016 #11

Nate Silver should stop counting this poll at all bluestateguy Oct 2016 #16

Trumpkin's favorite poll. nt oasis Oct 2016 #17

Its a bogus poll workinclasszero Oct 2016 #18

I went to USC, and I feel ashamed Yavin4 Oct 2016 #25

I'll defend USC conducting this poll but LA Times should not have put it's name behind it RAFisher Oct 2016 #27

A experimental should be a subject, not a tool Foggyhill Oct 2016 #29