In the last hour, a couple of Trump supporters have sent me a link to this article which says that Trump is only two points behind Clinton. They seem to think it's a brand-new ballgame, that the presidency is anyone's to win and that Trump's gains prove he'll be the victor. They're forgetting two things…
- The idea of polls is that you consider the totality of them, placing the most weight on the pollsters who've proven to be the best. It's not a matter of finding one whose numbers you like and declaring that the "latest" and therefore only accurate poll. There's always an outlier or two and there is such a thing as a bad pollster. One poll that says what you want to believe does not cancel out all the others that say what you want to ignore.
- The poll in question in this article is the Zogby Poll. I wouldn't believe the Zogby Poll if it told me it did a through survey and concluded that I have ten fingers. It would more likely say fourteen. Go to the search window on this site, search for "Zogby" and see how many times I've told you it's wildly inaccurate. I don't even believe it when it tells me what I want to believe.
If you're going to follow polls, at least follow an aggregate. The best is Nate Silver's but it wouldn't hurt to look at a couple. If they're all roughly on the same page, that page is probably right. You just have to be willing to deal with what is instead of what you want to have happen.