Rest Easy, Biden Haters: Past Elections Prove That Polls at This Stage Are Useless

The next year, politically speaking, will be a hellscape. That’s not to say politics has not been a hellscape since Nov. 8, 2016, or, really, for my money, since it became the medium that inspired the Capitol Steps to attempt humor, but this election cycle in particular shows no signs of being anything but punishingly, exhaustively awful.

Perhaps the sole useful development from the 2016 election is that no voter is complacent. We all watched as’ tracker betrayed us on election night, as that godforsaken arrow, firmly ensconced in Clinton’s half when the voting booths closed, slowly and steadily veered to the right until the conclusion was unavoidable.

This is a paradox of the information age: We crave validation through data, but we simultaneously know far too well the shortcomings of these numbers. When bad polls appear, even a year before election day, we panic; when good polls appear, we fret about the sampling method and the margin of error. What I want, and I assume most Democrats want, is a panacea that rigorous statistical analysis simply cannot provide.

The Washington Post deserves much blame for springboarding Chris Cillizza’s career and continuing to provide George Will a platform, but I must give credit where it’s due: They’re managing to keep me sane with their. The subtitle—“a reminder of how quickly presidential races can change”—understates the effort: It studies prior elections and each day tweets, without commentary, the primary polling averages for that day in the most recent election cycle.

It’s a simple but hilarious service, keyed on its inversion of the nature of polls. By looking backwards, and invoking the certainty of past election results, these historical polls become a source of dramatic irony. We, the audience for these tweets, certainly know that such outlandish scenarios didn’t come to pass, but lo, how silly we were!

Lucas_A_Hubbard A whole generation that can not understand basic statistics SAD

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

10 Haute Bohemians Who Live Beautifully—And Make It Look EasySuki Waterhouse, Elettra Wiedemann, and Margherita Maccapani Missoni, and more of W's favorite style icons open up their fabulous homes.
Source: wmag - 🏆 723. / 51 Read more »

It's Easy to See Why Andy Cohen's Son Was Named People's Cutest Baby Alive This Year.People named Andy Cohen's son as this year's Cutest Baby Alive because, well, look at him! 😍
Source: POPSUGARMoms - 🏆 117. / 63 Read more »

For Miranda Lambert, Nothing About Singing Came EasyTexas-born country-music star Miranda Lambert watched her parents come back from losing everything and learned from their determination Why would anyone call this 'country' music? Because she flies a flag in her videos? Its just pop music. she didn't learn that tattoos are a fad for losers This is great!
Source: WSJ - 🏆 98. / 63 Read more »

3 Fast, Easy Hairstyles to Try if You Have BangsThe best part? Each of marianna_hewitt's styles takes only a matter of seconds to do and works well on second-day-after-a-shampoo hair:
Source: Fashionista_com - 🏆 474. / 51 Read more »

2 Easy Pie Crusts, the BraveTart and Food Lab WaysYou've probably noticed that we have two different pie crust recipes that we call upon with regularity here on Serious Eats. In one corner, from 2011, we have my Easy Pie Dough, and in the other corner, from 2016, we've got Stella's Old-Fashioned Flaky Pie Dough. What gives? Do we really need two pie dough recipes in our arsenal, and which one is better than the other?\r\n\r\nDon't worry. We're here to help find the right dough for you. I would pay the PPV to see BraveTart and kenjilopezalt arm-wrestle to settle this once and for all. I've been making pies since childhood and have tried so many recipes to varying levels of success, including both of those listed here, and I have to say... Stella's honestly is the most foolproof, most beautiful crust I've ever used, and I'm going to use it probably forever. I've done both, but BraveTart's is the better way. Sorry kenjilopezalt
Source: seriouseats - 🏆 410. / 53 Read more »