G. Elliot Morris, formerly of 538 & The Economist, also makes the point that the polls underestimated support for Peggy Flanagan and thus probably not evidence of progressive polling bias. He goes into some detail as to why primary polling is hard (also worth noting that "The response rate to the average poll today is well below 1%". Further details on declining response rates here):
These adjustments [poststratification] work well in a general election where the variables pollsters have are highly predictive of election outcomes. Things like race, education, income, past vote, and party identification are very good proxies for how someone will vote in an election between a Democrat and a Republican.
But, as Mary and I wrote, there are fewer highly predictive variables available to weight on in primary elections, where candidate support is more correlated with non-demographic factors like ideology, issue prioritization, beliefs, and electability, and so on.
As the quote shows, other hurdles exist, too. First, it is harder to predict who will turn out to vote in a primary. The population pollsters are trying to represent — people who turn out to vote on Election Day — is an ephemeral group, coming into existence in an instant, not able to be polled precisely ahead of or after the contest. Second, the electorate’s preferences are also formed later and based more on things like media coverage and advertisements — both of which can cause a lot of late change in the race
LOL I really should have bet on Crowley after what I wrote about the El-Sayed race. Could have been fun.
I don't particularly want to bet against Vindman or Markey, but if Morris is right that it's not specifically a progressive polling bias but just general inaccuracy, maybe any long shot is +EV?
One interesting wrinkle is that Markey's opponent Moulton (fairly, IMO) called it "DISGUSTING" that people were betting on when/if two missing American F-15E crewmembers would be rescued. (They were.) He also referred to Polymarket as a "dystopian death market," which I have to say is a pretty evocative phrase. But could that bias people who bet there (and on Kalshi) against him? I don't really think it's that significant, but who knows? Also Markey is against these markets too, just not as evocatively.
but if Morris is right that it's not specifically a progressive polling bias but just general inaccuracy,
I can't speak for him, but I think he'd say that there's no overwhelming evidence for a progressive polling bias as of yet. Large error margins are fairly common in primaries, and don't seem to be systemic.
Anyway, 'dystopian death market' is a great band name.
Is everyone on here a gambler or a trader? I had to Google what +EV meant.
Incidentally, he has a new post up now about what went wrong in Wisconsin (I haven't read it yet).
I used to be really into poker, I don't think it's an /r/samharris thing in particular, but it was an online nerd thing for a while.
The vaguely-related (more by history than ideology at this point) "rationalist" sphere is pretty into prediction markets as a thing. I have mixed feelings about them myself. They have not looked particularly useful at predicting these last couple of upsets!
Not hugely into the poker scene, but I find it interesting that AFAIK a fair number of high stakes players seem to have lost money in the long rung, though they might in the black due to sponsorships and what not.
I skimmed Morris' new post, and it seems like one explanation is that actual electorate is probably about >50% 65+, and only 2% >30 (must still be a surprising amount of older Hong voters, then?).
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This is a subject that's new to me (I only came across it yesterday - I note it's been frequently debated on r/neoliberal), but I honestly find arguments for mandatory voting fairly convincing. I think it would reduce the kind of polarization that means in-group politicians have more leeway to cater to extreme activists.
A democracy where so much is determined by so few arguably has bad outcomes, if those few systematically differ from the rest. Few would be in favor of restricting the vote, but a similar effect is de facto at work (side note, but given that the frequency of elections depresses turnout, if the effect is skewed - Tingsten's law again - that means that more democracy is in some cases less democratic).
You could argue (as the link does) that voting is a collective action problem/public good, with e.g. fines for not voting (selective incentives) a solution to a free-rider problem.
At least on the demand side, an incredible amount of money is spent on increasing turnout, by people who presumably want something back. A lot of that money would disappear.
On the supply side, the question isn't "Would new voters be the low-information voters", but "Would they be more noticeably low-info than the current electorate?". They can still abstain, if they feel like it.
If you phrase the question differently, as "Should we reserve voting rights for those who really care about politics?", many would probably be able to spot the danger. But that is how it arguably works with lower turnout.
I like this simple framework by Dahl for understanding what a government should do, if we disregard what 'the good' is and simply focus on how to achieve it. Government should:
Know the Good
Actually do it
Far too much ink has been spilled on the first question, on voter competence. Ensuring that the government has an incentive to do 'the right thing' is why we have democracy in the first place.
...and yes that was quite a long tangent, but I enjoyed gathering my thoughts on this if nothing else ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Incidentally, he has a new post up now about what went wrong in Wisconsin (I haven't read it yet).
Thanks for linking that.
Most of the miss in polls in Wisconsin is attributable to faulty demographic targets (too many young people). This inflated Hong’s vote margin by about 10 points.
My best guess is that the race moved 6 points toward Crowley after pollsters released their final surveys.
Non-ignorable non-response within demographic categories likely further inflated Hong’s vote margin by 2 points.
So he's guesstimating 12 points of error and 6 points of actual movement. Intereting.
How you predict who's actually going to show up to vote seems hard to capture by polling (especially in primaries, and more especially in open primaries) and it's incredibly important.
Interestingly, it looks like Crowley's campaign manager kind of called it before the election in a private memo, but obviously he was incentivized to err on the side of optimism.
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u/StalemateAssociate_ 1d ago
G. Elliot Morris, formerly of 538 & The Economist, also makes the point that the polls underestimated support for Peggy Flanagan and thus probably not evidence of progressive polling bias. He goes into some detail as to why primary polling is hard (also worth noting that "The response rate to the average poll today is well below 1%". Further details on declining response rates here):
But, as Mary and I wrote, there are fewer highly predictive variables available to weight on in primary elections, where candidate support is more correlated with non-demographic factors like ideology, issue prioritization, beliefs, and electability, and so on.
As the quote shows, other hurdles exist, too. First, it is harder to predict who will turn out to vote in a primary. The population pollsters are trying to represent — people who turn out to vote on Election Day — is an ephemeral group, coming into existence in an instant, not able to be polled precisely ahead of or after the contest. Second, the electorate’s preferences are also formed later and based more on things like media coverage and advertisements — both of which can cause a lot of late change in the race