 American issues take two, I'm Jay Fidel, this is Think Tech, and we're talking about polls today. How are the polls being affected? How will they affect the election two weeks away and beyond? So let's talk to our regular co-host, Kim Apachele, our regular contributor, Stephanie Stull Dalton, and our special esteemed guest who joins us from a hotel lobby somewhere in the former USA, Jeffrey Portnoy. I welcome all of you to the show. I'm not sure the folks in Warsaw really care about the election, so I don't know why we're doing the show. Well, we'll find a reason. Though the first question is- You're talking about polls, right? Yeah, polls, why- Oh, polls, I got it, I'm sorry. This is gonna be a very co-efficient show. I'm a little slow on that one. Kim, let me go to you first. What are the polls saying right now about the elections two weeks away? Well, it shows that those Democrats that had a more comfortable margin of favorability in September, that margin is eroding. Although many of the Democrat candidates for Senate and governor of various states, they still are up two points, maybe three points, but they enjoyed a higher margin back in September, so they are tightening. And I'm starting to think that, the recent attention on the polls and advertising the fact that these are neck and neck is not to have Democrats get complacent, stay at home thinking, okay, the polls show that my candidate is gonna win, therefore I don't need to go out and vote. I think they're doing this on purpose to say, it's a horse race, it's neck and neck, and every vote is required and needed if you want to preserve democracy. That's the sense I'm getting on all the CNN and MSNBC type shows. You know, and Herrick, then your answer is the notion that the polls want to control the vote. That's what you're saying. Well, I'm saying that the media that takes the polling data is spinning it. Yes, it's not the polls that are doing it, it's the media that's reporting on the polls, and I'm seeing some spin room effects going on here. Yeah, okay, let me go to you, Stephanie. Do we know who the pollsters are? Do we know how they conduct these polls? Are we supposed to attach the credibility of the media to the polls? In other words, if you believe the media, then therefore you believe the polls. And one of the thing is there are a lot of pollsters out there. Some of them are more left than right and some of them are more right than left. You have to pick a poll, don't you? How do you do that? And how do you know it's a good poll? Well, the polls in general are considered the most successful political development in the century. And that presumably they show us what it is that the public wants. So I suppose some of the polls are gonna show that better or be more to your liking than others. But as I watched it on the shows, so CNN, et cetera, I mean, they always identify the pollster. Sometimes they even interview the pollster. There's usually a date on the poll. Usually some numbers, usually about 1,000. They've got all of that statistics down about all the methodology for how many they need to contact and get data from so they can run it through their algorithms. So presumably they give voters the chance to compare where they stand against where others stand that they wouldn't have otherwise. I mean, it really was a breakthrough from what information was available before. So it's a very powerful tool and it can influence decision-making and it can influence voters, you know? And they also can give journalists a boost. They give journalism a huge boost, the polls do. So their tools for journalists to really make a difference in the way they're reporting and the specifics that they're providing for the public. And the other advantage of them is that they keep government honest, I guess, or not. But I mean, all of these advantages and features of polls and how their contribution to our democracy can be tweaked other ways. Now we know, now we know that the misuse that can come in too. So you're asking, well, what's the misuse? Do we know who these people are that are doing the polling? And I don't think we do get any systematic introduction to, you know, who they are and how good they are. They just say that it will be the journalists, you know, this is a really good poll from Quinniaciac or wherever it is that the poll is from. So I don't think that answers the question. I don't know if there is an answer question. I'm thinking maybe we don't know the answer, Jay. We're not getting enough information. It's a good question. Jeff, Jeff, do you think polls are really necessary? No, I think they're ridiculous. I think they're ridiculous. And I don't think anybody that thinks they serve any purpose, sorry, Stephanie, is just dead wrong. First of all, we know from 2016 that the polls are not accurate anymore. They couldn't have been more inaccurate. And they're inaccurate in state after state and in race after race. They're inaccurate because the 100 years of polling, whatever Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, doesn't work anymore. Some huge percentage of people don't have phones, you know, landline phones, they have cell phones and they don't respond to pollsters. And they're a very significant part of the community either because they don't want to respond. And we saw that with Trump voters and we continue to see how undercounted they are because they don't believe in those people and so they will not respond. Or they're of a different generation and don't think they're of any value. I think they hurt. I think they hurt because I think they give out misleading information about how close or unclose a race may be. And yeah, I mean, the last, it's a horse race, right? People can't wait to get the polls because the polls apparently give us a snapshot. That's what the pollsters say, right? It's a snapshot of the days they took the poll. And then when the polls are totally wrong three days later they go, well, we told you there was a snapshot. So, you know, they're fun to talk about and they do show shifting voting sentiments, quote unquote. But if I had to bet over under on any particular poll, I think I'd probably take anything that said the polls will be off by three or 4% at least. Yeah, you make it sound like a horse race and maybe it is a horse race. Maybe it's a big bet. It's the national paramutual. See if you agree or disagree with it. You got a better chance betting on a horse race. So, Tim, how much does it affect you when they say that the Democrats were ahead or more ahead, say in the house a couple of weeks ago and less ahead now? Does that affect you? Does that affect your vote? You think it affects anybody's vote? What's the point? I think it's a field-goed moment if your candidate's up in the polls. It's a field-good moment. Does it affect you? Sure, I mean, if the data shows that your candidate is way ahead, you may just stay at home going, they got it. It's in the bag. I don't need to disrupt my shopping time or I don't need to disturb my personal time after work. I don't need to vote because my candidate's gonna glide through the finish line. I'm with Jeff. I mean, the sampling is horrible. Who has a landline anymore? I don't know anyone, but apparently they're out there. The bottom line is the data's horribly skewed and sure enough, I mean, 2016 was the major year where they got it completely wrong. And so there's a lot of damage to the credibility of pollsters. And that's evidence by saying the margin of error is at least two and a half to 3%. That's a wide margin. That's huge. Or sometimes over 4%, they'll tell you that. Yeah, I mean, why have a poll if you're gonna have a swing of 4%? That makes no sense to me. So Tim, I asked you how you react, but I'd like to ask you now how you think the electorate reacts. Some of them may not be as akamai as you and they see the polls the same way. Do you think it changes the effect? Does the effect have a change on the election? In other words, okay, they may stay home because they think their side already won. Or they may say, oh, gee, I gotta vote right now to help my side or oh, gee, I don't believe any of this. I mean, how does the average person in average middle America react to a poll? I'm gonna go to Jeff's statement. I completely agree with Jeff about the mega GOP going, we don't trust these people, we don't like these people and these people report fake news. And so there we're not gonna participate or we're going to lie on purpose. We're gonna skew the polls. So it's a sabotage effect. And then you're right, the Gen Zs, do they see any value of the polling? Maybe the millennials do, but Gen Z, I don't think they do. And certainly Gen Z, they don't have a landline. So you're not getting the opinions and how they're leaning towards a candidate because they all have cell phones. So I'm not up on polls at all. I may be a little more lenient than Jeff is on the criticism of polls, but I'm not for them either. I think they're a bad idea. I mean, I think they serve two purposes. One, I think internal polling is a good thing done by a candidate. And I've been involved in a lot of elections where I see internal polling compared to external polling and they don't match all the time. And in fact, most of the time they don't match at all. But what polling has become, and if you get a thousand texts a day like most of us do, it's become a fundraising tool. Every day I'm getting polls now from every Democratic candidate you can think of, uh-oh, we're down to 2%, we need another 25 bucks. That's the only value of polls now is to get money. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, well, that's a really good point. I get the same email and it turns me off completely. I would never give money and I wouldn't believe the polls to either. So Stephanie, let's, well, let me ask you this. Do you think that polls had a big effect in the 2016 election by which Trump was elected, arguably? And do you think that whatever effect they had in those days is gonna be repeated here while was repeated in 2020 and will be repeated in the midterms coming in two weeks? Well, I think people are, as you all have said, I mean, the polls are less valuable. I mean, as long as we don't know the sampling frame, we need to be informed as much by that and even more than knowing what the standard error of measurement is, even for these close races, but we need to know where they're getting that information from, we need more information to understand if they can be helpful to us to know what is the picture that's out there. So I mean, you've brought up, I mean, it's a big hole here. Nobody's filling, nobody's due diligence here on what's the quality of this data, okay? I mean, junk in, junk out. Data depends on having high quality input. So where are they getting all this information from and how can they even begin to be useful for us? And so, I mean, like what is written about them is that they're very important to the whole democratic process, but like everything else we've got that's so important is now being shown to be double edged sword. They're learning how to use these things whichever way you want. Yeah, they're tools. And so is social media. And I wanna go to social media now with you, Tim. The polls, and I think Jeff's point was really good about how they have become fundraising instruments, but social media has entered the arena and if we were not aware of it back in 2016 and reading retrospectively, we should be aware of it now. Tim Snyder, his book a couple of years ago was The Road to Unfreedom. And in that book, he goes on at great lengths about exactly what Trump did for social media and how we worked with Cambridge Analytica, how we worked with Putin, how Putin used the Internet Research Agency and created these phony posts and retweets by the millions, by the billions actually, and bots all over the American landscape. And this is 2016 I'm talking about. We may not have been aware of it at the time. I don't think the press caught onto it right away. And then we find later that that's what happened and Snyder wrote this really interesting review of it, scary review of it. And then as I recall, back in the middle of Trump's administration, it was made clear that whatever was happening with social media, trying to affect changes in public sensibilities was still happening and did happen in 2020 and will happen in 2022, a couple of weeks from now. So this is, I guess you could say it's a kissing cousin of Paul's because it's an attempt to get you in your bubble and it's an attempt to change your sensibilities to extend possible. So what about social media? How would you compare social media with polling, Tim? I wanna compare social media with polling. You know, Jayce, now and then you ask me a question I don't have an answer to. I will say that the service of the former head of security of Twitter, and I'm trying to look up his name and I can't recall it, he did great service to all of us to say what Twitter has in control and what things they don't know about. And to a certain degree, they don't know still how many fake bots they have in their accounts. Elon Musk said I'm not gonna go through with the deal because you can't disclose the number of fake bots. My deal, my purchase of Twitter was contingent upon I think 5% or less. So we don't know to what degree fake bots exist. We don't know degree Eastern block countries or Russia has infiltrated Facebook, Twitter in the 2022 election. We know what they did in the 2016 election and the amount of bots and fake messages and fake accounts was astronomical. And did it help Donald Trump? You bet it did. So social media is as important as the election in 1960 between Nixon and Kennedy. It was a tool that was never used before quite effectively. Kennedy took advantage of it, Nixon didn't. Social media is no different in those days and whoever can grab hold of the most effective way of advertising on Twitter and Facebook, better their campaign does. Usually you spoke before the show about, one second, Jeff, you spoke before the show about algorithms that are used by social media and how they tend to keep us or connect us with our respective bubbles. Can you talk about that now? Sure, well, it was highly used in 2016. The public now is aware of the term and that is you're going through your social media and you click on a news article and it's pertaining to a certain specific subject and you click on another one that's a little bit similar. Now Facebook and Twitter knows exactly what you're interested in. They start crafting other news stories that are related to that and start sending them to you. You start seeding them on your feed and lo and behold, you start clicking on those and before you know it, you're now considered either a liberal Democrat or a mega-GOP and Facebook and Twitter are going to feed to that and you're going to get more of what you like, more of which is filtered for you and you now found yourself in your own silo, your own bubble with other fellow mega-GOP or liberal Democrats. Well, Jay, that algorithm, we don't know enough about that. They're not reporting out on how they're using it and it may be that we are into a synonymous situation here. The overlap of social media with polling. We don't know, but that those algorithms may be feeding the polls or polls may be resourcing algorithms. Or I want to add one point. You know, I don't know about you guys but I have on occasion sat at phone banks for given candidates. And the rule in the phone bank was you don't call the other side. You don't call people on the other side of the question of the election because you won't be able to convince them. You call people either on your side of it or people in the middle and you're trying to confirm them to be sure to go down and vote for the person they think will win, that is the person you think they will vote for. So it's the confirmation aspect. And I think we have to build that into the discussion. The polls were to confirm. Likewise, the social media has been designed through these algorithms to confirm. It's the same principle as the phone bank. Anyway, Jeff, you were gonna say. Well, I was gonna say that social media reports the polls and so it gives them much greater import than they would ordinarily have. Most people don't read the newspaper. And so they're not gonna see the poll results or they watch a particular television station whether it's left or right and they see the polls that that particular outlet wants to produce. But on social media, you can find every single poll you're interested in. And I think social media drives whatever importance polls have. And I think they have importance. I just think it's all negative importance. I mean, in many ways, I think drives people to either vote or not vote, as Tim said. I mean, if you candidates up by eight points, you'd rather go to Walmart. So you try to make a horse race between one or 2% and hope that the people on either side decide, you know what, my vote's important. But unfortunately, just take a look at the number of people who vote. Half the country doesn't think their vote matters so they don't bother. And that's another problem with polls. It doesn't accurately reflect who's going to vote. Who's your preference means nothing. It's not your preference. Your preference means nothing. It's who you're actually going to cast a ballot for. That makes the difference. Well, there are all these experts out there, you know, who give... Like us? Like us? No, no, we don't give counsel to candidates. No, no, but experts, you said. Experts who give counsel. Oh, okay. And there are all these experts who give counsel about polls, you know, they're well-paid, they're part of the campaign team, for sure. And there are experts in social media. And it's, you know, the same idea. Let's change the way the vote will come out. And, you know, as I mentioned, Tim Snyder writes this up about the 2016 election. It is really scary how powerful social media and the bots and the algorithms and these retweets coming from Vladimir Putin and Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump all in a little cabal in 2016. And it was, it worked. And I don't think we should forget for a minute, they were using, what do you want to call it, the social psychology to them, to the end's degree and using polls and social media in order to swing the vote. And that still exists. You know, I'm reminded that there were a couple of years in the middle where Congress was going to have, going to take some action. They were going to investigate this. They were going to have hearings. But nobody knew how to frame a question. Mark Zuckerberg could dance around and confuse them. And nobody could figure out exactly how this worked, either on the Cambridge Analytica level or on the internet research level or on the social media level. Yeah, but don't forget, and I don't have the statistics in front of me, but correct me if I'm wrong. But 45 to 48% of the electorate is locked in. Regardless, you're talking about four or 5%. I don't know what percentage of races are 52 to 48 or 50. Most of them are, you know, or else they're over before they even start. So the polls to me are a joke anyway, because 46, 47% are already in one camp or another when the race starts. And you're fighting for that 5% that haven't yet said they've made up their mind. I mean, that's my view. Okay, well, let me go further on, you have you. Congress has shown an interest, shown a concern about this, recognizing that these ways- Which Congress? The same 90% that get elected every two years? Those people? The same Congress. Oh, okay. They have not, you know, they have not done anything. But my question to you is, could you legislate a solution to this? No. Could you say we don't want polls? Could you say we don't want social media on political issues? What happened to free speech at the congressional level? No, what happened to free speech? I mean, you're talking to the wrong guy. As horrible as all these things may have turned out to be, it's free speech. It's not the speaker, it's the reader or the listener. Some readers are incapable of reading. Well, I understand, but, you know, they can listen. Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. No, no, no, that's okay. I'm interrupting you. I'd like to highlight a point you just made. And that is the electorate is locked in. But why is that? I mean, in years past, you know, people's attitudes and values would change depending on what news was coming in, coming in about a candidate or a policy change that candidate had. But what's happening in our electorate now is, in some ways, politics has become the way of religion. And how often do you change your religion? Not very much. And so the more embedded politics are, and as akin to a religion, you're talking about a very narrow slice of electorate that may change their opinion about one candidate or one party, one policy or another. I mean, I think that's why polling is kind of useless now. I mean, just look at Herschel Walker. All the stuff that's come out. Correct. The polls haven't moved that much at all. And in fact, some polls haven't moving in his direction. That's what tells you. I think that's a really good point. Here's something really dramatic. And the polls haven't reflected it to the people who are responding to the polls are oblivious to Herschel Walker. So you can't give credit to a poll that doesn't respond to an obvious change in circumstances, which takes me to my last area of discussion with you guys. And I'll go to Stephanie on this. Stephanie, we have two weeks left. And if you recall, the Hillary Clinton affair with the emails and James Comey with the investigation at the FBI on or off or off or on, it did have an effect arguably. Not so much because he turned on the investigation or turned it off, but because the social media and the polling capitalized on it. And everyone got on the bandwagon and attacked Hillary Clinton and arguably that had an effect on the 2016 election. So query, we're two weeks out now. How likely is it that we're gonna have another Hillary Clinton James Comey affair either in the polls or the social media or in an interactive exchange between the two of them? Well, maybe polls are doing more than we ever thought they were supposed to do. I mean, in other words, you said that we're no changes in the polls after all that came out about Walker. But that may be what the polls are now needing to be considered to do, which is to bring us information that we didn't have otherwise. That actually it doesn't matter anymore. And all of these accusations, everything certain categories are across the board or whatever, that people are not influenced by that. They're voting for their power base. That's all. Let me ask you this, let me ask you this, Stephanie, what about the delay factor? So I see what goes on with Herschel Walker and nobody calls me for a week. I just don't get a call. The poll is not recognizing any change in my thinking. So we don't have the result yet in polls from Herschel Walker. You remember, you remember, you remember, and it's so true, so sadly, Donald Trump's famous quote that he could walk down Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot somebody and he wouldn't lose a vote. I'm paraphrasing. That's where this country is right now. That's every race. Yeah, what about the bus with Billy Bush on it when they come up and right there on the screen, we see a movie of a person that is completely moral-less. So I think that there's information to be had, maybe not what we expected, but I was gonna say that there's bias in these polls and where do they report on the bias of the polls? And as you were saying, Jay, who you were supposed to call at the call bank. So what role does that play in? What's the control on that and what's the measure of it that should be reported with the poll? And then of course, the huge big constructs that have to be considered are the validity of the poll and the reliability of the poll. Up until, go ahead, I'm sorry. I was just gonna say, because of reliability you've already discussed under the issue of who's going actually to vote. So after they report to the pollster, do they ever go out to vote? So what's the reliability? And that deals with the poll. 20 years ago, elections were decided on real issues. You know, the Cold War or the economy, and I mean really the economy. Now, since Trump, they're decided on personalities, one, and social issues, second. That's what this whole thing has turned into because of Donald Trump. Yes, there's always a few other things that come up. This election is between abortion and Trump. Really, I mean, that's what it's come down to. And when I mean personalities, I don't mean whether you're a nice person or not. It's whether you believe in Trump, or you don't believe in Trump. I mean, and so it's not good for democracy. No. It's like voting whether you like Nero or not as to whether the Roman Empire continues. Yeah, let me add one thought to all of this and that is you talked about the First Amendment, Jeff. You know, when the First Amendment is so problematic as it is now, you wonder if it's sustainable. And the whole thing about crime, fire and crowded movies theater, because there's an alarm quality about it. Well, how about crime, fire, and a crowded social media where the result of the election can be dependent on that? It's equally alarming. And I'm afraid to tell you that I think the First Amendment is under this kind of reverse echo effect attack. We don't have enough time. We don't have enough time to debate that. But where we are? I said 20 years ago, I want to be more accurate. We're back to the early fifties in the McCarthy era where you're either a communist or you're not and that's how you vote. Seriously. So I think we're really out of time because we have another show to follow. Let me go to one. Oh, it can't be anywhere as good. The next show can't be anywhere near as good as this one. Cancel it. No, I would certainly agree at least in part. So, Tim, give us a closing comment, will you? How do I do that after what I just heard? Closing comment is this. Our polling is, our polling now is being used as news entertainment. The problem with the news is it's become blended with entertainment and over opinions blended with news. And that's the value of polling now. I think it's useless. And I guess if you are going to use polling then focus in on registered voters versus the term likely voters. Likely voters means nothing to me. So if you're going to poll, poll those who are actively registered. That's my final thought. Okay. And Jeff, how about you? Can you do something in 10 or 15 seconds? No, I have nothing more to say because I want to get on to the next show. Of course you do. Stephanie, I know you feel the same way, but why don't you make a closing statement? I can make a call. I want to just say that one of the arguments for polls is that totalitarian government do not ever take polls because they don't want any of this information out. They don't want voters to be able to compare or to know what's out there. But I think that that's all turning around now because it's not servicing our democratic republic in the way that it was assumed that it was going to do. I only want to add one thought before we close, and that is we have two weeks to go. And if I was a Maga Republican or one of those counselor people, advisor people in the Maga Republican camp, I would try to think of something akin to the email issue with Hillary Clinton and let that go at the last minute and let it go in polls, let it go in social media or in an interaction between the two so I can wreck the election and get both houses no question. We'll see what happens. You mean the Hunter Biden indictment? Is that what you're waiting for? I think I mean exactly that. Okay, you guys, thank you very much. This is Think Tech Hawaii, and we're talking about American issues. Take two, we'll see you next week, aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. 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