How To Read Polls #296 By Hank Silverberg
I was doing my usual search through social media earlier this week when a new poll in the presidential race was released. It was done by Marquette University Law School, and for the first time it showed Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump among likely voters 53% to 47%.
That got some Trump supporters all in a tizzy, claiming that the media is manipulating the polls, they don't count and it was all fake.
It was a good reminder that all the polls are not
the same, and that the public often doesn't understand the different methodology.
There are various types of polls. Some, like the Marquette poll, or the ones done by highly respected Marist College, are independent. They have no agenda and use standard non-partisan methodology to create a statistical picture of a particular political contest, issue or candidate at that particular point in time. They are a snapshot of what voters are favoring or not favoring for the period being polled.
The Pew Institute is also another example of a non-partisan statistical science poll that has no agenda and no slant.
The Marquette poll cited above was done between July 24th and August 1st, while an earlier Marquette poll done May 6-15 showed Trump with a 51%-49% lead over President Biden. Same methodology for both polls, but of course Harris is a different candidate than Biden.
There are other types of polls. Media organizations like the New York Times or CBS News may commission a polling company to do samples for them. They too are usually as reliable as any poll can be, because the news organizations themselves do the poll using proven statistical methods. Professional poll takers are hired and the people asking the questions usually don't even know who the poll's sponsor is.
It is rare for you to get a call from one of these professional pollsters on a national issue because they are conducted nationwide, often with just a few thousand voters.
The media usually contracts with well respected pollsters like the Gallup organization or Ipsos to do such polls.
The second and most pervasive polling is done by the candidate's campaigns or the political parties, where the questions are often skewed to produce favorable results for the candidate who hires the pollster. They are often done on local or state races and you are more likely to get a call from one of those.
So, how do you tell the difference when reading or hearing about poll results? First, check out who did the poll, and when. How many voters were questioned? Media reports on the findings of all polls tend to focus on the major results like the one I cited above. But check out the link to the actual poll if there is one, where you will find the margin of error, how many people were actually queried, and in most cases what the questions actually were. It will give you a better understanding of what the results actually mean, and whether the questions asked by the pollster were really bipartisan and fair or slanted.
But here's the most important thing to remember when looking at poll results. They are not predictions. They are simply a measurement of a statistical sample of voters during a given period. They can change radically over time if circumstances change, like noted above when the Democrats changed candidates.
One other thing. If you do get a call from a pollster, answer them truthfully. Lying just skews the poll results, and does a disservice to the country.
If you don't want to answer, simply say "no thank you," and hang up the phone.
Remember though, the only poll that really counts is the one on election day (or during early voting) when you actually cast a ballot.
News You May Have Missed!
New Nuclear Threat
The war in Gaza has taken attention away from the war between Ukraine and Russia. But this past week's bold thrust by Ukrainian forces into Russia in the Kursk region has presented a new threat.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is expressing concern that military activity
around the Kursk nuclear site could lead to disaster. The site has two fully operational nuclear reactors, two that have been shut down with waste still at the site, and two more under construction.
Rafel Grossi is warning both Russia and Ukraine to use maximum restraint to avoid a nuclear accident, which could have serious consequences.
There was similar worry when there was fighting last year around the abandoned nuclear site at Chernobyl in Ukraine.
Russia has already evacuated about 76,000 residents from the area as it moves in more troops to counter the Ukrainian attack.
Ukraine is hoping this attack into Russia will take some of the pressure off the war in the southern part of Ukraine where the Russians recently have been making small gains.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and has occupied the Crimea, part of Ukraine, since 2014.
UN issues horror nuclear warning as Russia evacuates thousands and WW3 fears mount (msn.com)
Barrier Reefs: HOT!
There is some new evidence that climate change is real and is having an impact on our planet. A study published this past week in the journal Nature shows sea surface heat is unprecedented compared to 400 years ago, and that has been damaging the Great Barrier Reef. The study says the impact can be reversed if changes are made, but if not it will likely lead to the demise of one of Earth's great natural resources.
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| (Coral Reef off the Virginia Islands, Public Domain) |
The Great Barrier Reef is the most extensive coral reef on the planet, and is home to more than 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 types of molluscs, endangered species of turtles and dugongs (Manatees and similar species).
The extra heat has produced mass bleaching of the reef over the past three decades, and the reef rejects tiny organisms living inside their tissue. Those are the organisms that give coral some of its color and help power its metabolism.
The research tracked nine years of the impact on coral. As coral grows, the chemistry of their skeleton reflects ocean conditions at the time, including the temperature. Some of the coral has been alive for centuries. That allowed the scientist to look at samples and reconstruct the average surface temperature for the Coral Sea from 1618 until 1995. Then they calibrated that to modern temperature records from 1900 to 2024. The calculations showed an average summer warming of 0.12 degrees Celsius.
They calculated that the sea temperatures for 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024 were five of the six warmest in the ocean in four centuries.
From that the scientists were able to determine that human impacts steadily warmed the Coral Sea region in the early 1900's and rapidly rose after the 1960's. And recent climate projections put the Coral Reef at bigger risk.
The study concludes that even if global warming meets the 1.5 Celsius threshold above pre-industrial temperatures outlined in the Paris Agreement on climate change, 70% to 90% of the coral across the world could still be lost.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
The dishonor this week goes to Republican Vice Presidential nominee, J. D.Vance when he was trying to justify a comment by his running mate, Donald Trump. Trump had called strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un "lovely people," which of course, the two dictators are not. When asked about this on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday, Vance said:
"I think that President Trump gets along with world leaders and there's nothing wrong with him complimenting them as people if it makes him more effective diplomatically...you are better able to lay down the law like President Trump did, if you actually have a good relationship with people and they trust you to follow your word."
Really? I seem to remember Neville Chamberlain saying something similar about Hitler in 1939.
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