{"id":41078,"date":"2024-09-29T11:38:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T16:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=41078"},"modified":"2024-09-29T11:38:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T16:38:48","slug":"the-2024-senate-campaign-updates-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2024\/09\/29\/the-2024-senate-campaign-updates-26\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2024 Senate Campaign: Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been an avalanche … of Legos … cartwheeling and screaming … about the last report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking of RMG Research<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Napolitan News Service<\/strong><\/em> sponsors RMG Research<\/strong><\/em> polls. I just ran across this in a Napolitan News Service<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This Napolitan News Service<\/em>\u00a0survey of 781 Likely Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen<\/strong> on September 18-20, 2024<\/em>\u00a0and has a margin of error of +\/- 3.5. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, I really don’t trust online surveys. Maybe the technology has improved, but getting a random sample of honest answers, already a difficult task, sounds even harder when it’s all online and features a bevy of malicious trolls.<\/p>\n

Second, Scott Rasmussen<\/strong> is of Rasmussen Reports, <\/strong><\/em>and Rasmussen Reports<\/strong><\/em> is not rated by FiveThirtyEight<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. They are listed<\/em>, but only in the section reserved for pollsters whose performance is so godawful that they’re not worth rating.<\/p>\n

So keep that in mind in the future when seeing RMG Research<\/strong><\/em>, despite their rating of 2.3\/3.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Bias<\/h3>\n

When I state a pollster is known<\/strong> to lean left or right, I generally mean someone in the media has stated so. Most often it’s FiveThirtyEight<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, which is, I hope, working from solid numbers of previous elections to deduce a result leading to that statement.<\/p>\n

When I say observed to lean<\/strong>, I mean that my impression of some of some pollster’s results is that they lean one way or the other in that they diverge from the general range of numbers. This doesn’t address the question of deliberate skew<\/em>, as that’s a bit impossible in the light – or dark – of a lack of access to “the truth”. Maybe the pollster in question, such as Morning Consult<\/strong><\/em> (1.9) or unrated ActiVote<\/strong><\/em>, has a better grip on reality than do highly rated pollsters.<\/p>\n

Nor does a lean<\/strong> skew all of a pollster’s results. Think deceit<\/em>, a desire not to be identified as skewing results because they’re trying to persuade voters that the herd is over there instead of over here. After all, despite its irrelevance to democracy, people do want to be part of the majority, and some will change their vote, without reference to their best judgement, just to be able to say honestly that they voted for a winner.<\/p>\n

To be clear, there’s no fidelity to democracy in such actions or even desire, but it does happen and, within the context of the emotional needs of a given person, is even rational.<\/p>\n

But it’s not honest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And Now For The Doxie Racing Numbers<\/h3>\n