Do the Polls Tell Us What Will Happen on November 5th?

Maybe I’ve said what I’m going to say today on other days, but repetition is the key to good teaching so I might as well try again.

And what I’m going to try again is to argue that all the polls are full of shit because they don’t even attempt to figure out the most important thing that any pre-election poll must try to figure out if it’s going to claim any degree of credibility in terms of telling us what will happen on November 5th.

And what this most important issue happens to be is whether or not someone who tells a pollster how they plan to vote actually shows up and casts a vote.

For example, let’s look at the latest NYT/Siena poll which all the so-called polling experts says is about as legitimate a poll as you can find.

The second question reads like this: “Thinking ahead to the presidential general election, are you almost certain that you will vote, very likely to vote, somewhat likely to vote, not very likely to vote, or not at all likely to vote?”

This question was answered by 2,516 respondents, of whom 94% said they were ‘almost certain’ to vote (58%,) very likely’ to vote (27%,) or had already voted (9%.) With the exception of respondents under the age of 30, these percentages held true no matter how the poll sliced or diced every…