Thoughts on the election results so far: Beto, Stacey, and how polls are totally worthless.
Like many people I’m pleasantly surprised by the overall result, given the dominant narratives going into the election. I’m dreading another Georgia runoff, though I’m optimistic about the outcome (more on that below) and I’m hopeful that the Dems can hold the Senate, and maybe even pick up a 51–49 majority that would diminish the influence of recalcitrant Democrats like Manchin and Sinema. That’s the big picture. Here are a few assorted reactions to smaller points:
It’s time to stop thinking poll results tell us anything.
For the fourth straight election the polls were basically worthless. I know, data mavens will talk about “margin of error” and “a snapshot in time,” and so on. The fact is that the methodology behind polling is fundamentally broken, and there doesn’t appear to be any good mechanism for fixing it. There may be some value in small internal polls, but for the most part campaigns should stop using polls to inform their strategies, and we as news consumers should ignore the polls entirely. I’d love to think the news media might lessen their focus on poll data, but that’s not going to happen.
