r/fivethirtyeight arguing

It's pretty obvious that something is very wrong with the polling. Trump caught up with Harris nationally but apparently all the state polls are still within a point.

I think the most likely scenario is them declining to release any polls which show a big lead in a swing state, especially if it's towards Trump. Somehow two polls came out in Iowa today, one with Trump +9 and the other with Harris +3. Previous polls are few and far between but generally gave Trump a comfortable lead. I find it difficult to believe that in the last two months the state was only polled twice, seems more likely that they see Trump +7 and decide not to publish it to protect their reputation.

The herding was inevitable and I can't believe Silver doesn't understand his role in this. Basically:

1. Lots of people spends lots of resources on polls

2. Silver comes along and just does meta analyses of these polls for cheaper and better results.

3. People spend less resources on the polls and just try to imitate what the meta analyses say.

4. Now all the polls suck lol

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."

Snapshots:

https://old.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1ghhnt6/theres_more_herding_in_swing_state_polls_than_at/:

• undelete.pullpush.io

• ghostarchive.org

• archive.org

• archive.ph (click to archive)