Are you a campaign manager or a pundit getting paid to talk about politics? There’s honestly no reason at all for the average person to care about polls this far out
There are some circumstances you may want to make certain preparations based on the possibility that one candidate or the other may win, and polling trends can help you determine what sort of plans and preparation you should be making.
One example that comes to my mind is that prior to Trump getting elected, my wife was concerned that a trump presidency could lead to Republicans killing Roe V Wade and/or making it more difficult to access birth control, and so she opted to get a longer-lasting IUD prior to the election.
The popularity polls, yes. She also won the popular vote by a significant margin.
Trump won some battleground states by slim margins, mostly because Clinton did a terrible job of deciding where to campaign. Also a lot of sketchy voter suppression tactics made those battleground state wins questionable.
They did, but she was doing her own analysis of the polls and had some concerns that made her think the race was going to be much closer than the polls suggested.
You shouldn’t just blindly take the polls at face value, you also need to be thinking critically about them, theres a lot of ways to misrepresent data, a lot of issues that can crop up due to how the polls are conducted, etc. and when she took all of that into account, the polls suggested to her that it was going to be a much closer race than most of the media coverage was saying.
She was still a little surprised that Trump actually won, but it wasn’t totally out of left field.
If your goal here is to not be surprised, I hate to tell you polls have margins of error that mean surprises are inevitable. Also, many polls are not infrequently found to be outside their SE when the actual results come in.
There’s plenty of reason to care. It’s a sign Biden’s campaign is not yet effective, and Trump is. While most incumbents don’t really step up the campaigning until closer to the election, it gives an idea of the ground they need to make up.
It’s also worth considering the Trump has been and continues to be great at campaigning. You can not like the guy, but his ability to get large crowds excited at multiple events per day can’t be ignored.
There’s likely going to be something that really swings the election still, but hoping a random event helps your party is poor strategy. In Trump’s case it’s unlikely a poor comment is going to hurt him, like the deplorables or binders full of women comments. Hoping for a conviction to change things is an OK backup plan, not plan A.
Are you a campaign manager or a pundit getting paid to talk about politics? There’s honestly no reason at all for the average person to care about polls this far out
There are some circumstances you may want to make certain preparations based on the possibility that one candidate or the other may win, and polling trends can help you determine what sort of plans and preparation you should be making.
One example that comes to my mind is that prior to Trump getting elected, my wife was concerned that a trump presidency could lead to Republicans killing Roe V Wade and/or making it more difficult to access birth control, and so she opted to get a longer-lasting IUD prior to the election.
Ok, but didn’t the polls have Clinton winning leading up to the 2016 election?
The popularity polls, yes. She also won the popular vote by a significant margin.
Trump won some battleground states by slim margins, mostly because Clinton did a terrible job of deciding where to campaign. Also a lot of sketchy voter suppression tactics made those battleground state wins questionable.
They did, but she was doing her own analysis of the polls and had some concerns that made her think the race was going to be much closer than the polls suggested.
You shouldn’t just blindly take the polls at face value, you also need to be thinking critically about them, theres a lot of ways to misrepresent data, a lot of issues that can crop up due to how the polls are conducted, etc. and when she took all of that into account, the polls suggested to her that it was going to be a much closer race than most of the media coverage was saying.
She was still a little surprised that Trump actually won, but it wasn’t totally out of left field.
There absolutely is. You follow them continually to establish a trendline.
Since I’ve been following these key states, I’ve watched them go 50/50 to virtually all Trump, to all Trump by a wider margin.
Following polls over time lets you see the momentum.
By the time the election comes around, there should be no surprises.
If your goal here is to not be surprised, I hate to tell you polls have margins of error that mean surprises are inevitable. Also, many polls are not infrequently found to be outside their SE when the actual results come in.
Again, you can reduce the margin of error by plotting the trend line.
It’s the same science for watching climate change:
If one candidate is trending up towards election day and another is trending down you can tell which way it’s going to swing.
There’s plenty of reason to care. It’s a sign Biden’s campaign is not yet effective, and Trump is. While most incumbents don’t really step up the campaigning until closer to the election, it gives an idea of the ground they need to make up.
It’s also worth considering the Trump has been and continues to be great at campaigning. You can not like the guy, but his ability to get large crowds excited at multiple events per day can’t be ignored.
There’s likely going to be something that really swings the election still, but hoping a random event helps your party is poor strategy. In Trump’s case it’s unlikely a poor comment is going to hurt him, like the deplorables or binders full of women comments. Hoping for a conviction to change things is an OK backup plan, not plan A.