271 Comments

Thank you, Jay Kuo! I read only a bit of that poll before my fury stopped me. I called the NYT Editorial contact and left a scathing message (I know the article isn’t an editorial, but I didn’t care). It appears that some Times writers want Trump back in the WH. I noticed that when they mentioned that someone had said that Biden is a nice old man who’s forgetful (paraphrasing this), they didn’t note that the person who said that was Robert Hur, a Republican. Utterly irresponsible of the Times to do this once again (Hillary’s emails).

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They personally don’t want Trump but the BIG BOSS has certainly made it clear that click bait and stirring up terror is more important than news.

Fuck the NYT.

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Thank you! My words, too!

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IDK if it’s the writers or the Headline (clickbate) folks who are pushing for the tRumpster, but someone on that staff sure is!

Too bad for the NYT!

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Nate Cohn is behind most of NYT's polling efforts. At best he's a hack. At worst, he's in the pocket of somebody in Trump campaign, although how they're able to pull the money out of the legal bond/legal/judgement fund is beyond me.

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Also, I'll be updating my Trump Headline Corrector (mostly New York Times crap) soon:

https://ruminato.substack.com/p/trump-headline-corrector-february

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Excellent Substack Charles Bastille!

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Thank you!

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Is Nate Cohn related to Roy Cohn?

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Can't find any family tree online after a cursory search. Nate Cohn very unlikely to be a direct descendent - Roy M. Cohn was gay, died of AIDS in 1986 - probably cursing Reagan all the way to Hell.

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Thanks, although I was trying to be tongue in cheek. There are no emojis to indicate so.

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I appreciated the possibility that the question was posed facetiously, but it piqued my curiosity - could Nate Cohn be a great-nephew

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I didn't know that about Roy Cohn, but I suspected with how despicable he was at the time that no one would consider touching him. Maybe someone perfected cloning early. Lol

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Legit question!

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Thank you! Good to know.

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“It appears that some Times writers want Trump back in the WH.”

Appears?

Why are liberals so ridiculously wimpy about calling Republican supporters out not their shit?

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Some liberals are pretenders just as some conservatives are pretenders. It's time that liberals conduct their own polls and show the results. Undoubtedly, their polls would be called bs and it would be worth it just hear/read the outrage and false & hypocritical accusations.

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My guess is Trump is not really a favorite with the media—God knows he’s manifested nothing but hostility towards them his whole career. But they probably don’t want him to tank too early because without the suspense of the appearance of a close contest, the media loses money. That’s what’s behind the horse race mentality that drives election coverage.

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And this is why I now look at any poll with a good dose of suspicion. The NYT definitely "ain't what it used to be", and that is disappointing, to say the least.

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The NYT is exactly what it has always been, a left wing propaganda arm.

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The poll was not freaking me out because I did not look at it. I do not trust the validity of anything the NYT does in terms of this election. I saw the headline and deleted it, and that is what I recommend to everyone to do who still gets the rag called NYT. This is not because I am a conspiracy theorist, but because the proof is in the pudding. Their coverage has been abysmal at best and criminal at worst. They have proven that they don't know how to cover this election properly. And they are very defensive about it. So, no learning there. We will just say they are lacking a growth mindset. Nothing but ignoramuses have responded to me from the publication. I don't have time for these id'jits. Life is too short. As Jeff Tiedrich pointed out today, it is frustrating that there are no articles about his troubles with speech that I attribute to some sort of Brain aphasia that Trump seems to have. It deserves full coverage not radio silence. I loathe, detest and despise the NYT like I do the Chicago Tribune since they endorsed Ronald Reagan. I do not believe publications should endorse politicians, especially not planet destroying ones. I don't believe they should be creating polls either, because reporting on the poll is them reporting on news they created, which is not what they are a supposed to do. Statistically they can say anything, but as I had to tell my doctor who told me at 43 I had the fertility of a 20 year old, "No. I have the fertility of a 43 year old and obviously it varies!" This, by the way, is a basic biological point that seems to be beyond the NYT, because they look for Biden to mess up as a sign of his age, as opposed to the opposite which is to look at how much he is not messing up. As for Trump they are also doing the opposite. They are looking at his age as irrelevant because he is younger than Biden in years. Clearly Biden is younger in genetics. Dummies at the NYT have not even investigated this. All of them would have had a really hard time in my fourth grade class because I suffer no fools. Most of my students get that and learn to think with more complexity than I am seeing in the NYT analysis of the most important election in our lifetime and on this planet. They are treating it like Journalism 101 in Russia!

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My subscription has expired--and not a moment too soon! The current above-the-fold (online) headline is "Majority of Biden voters now think he's too old to be president." My own scathing message to the NYT will be on its way soon.

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They are being from irresponsible to traitorous.

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Thank you for, once again, talking me off the ledge. You have no idea how much of my mental health you are salvaging.

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One more thing to consider here that Jay didn't elaborate on, Paula:

Only 823 potential voters nation-wide completed the full survey. If evenly distributed, that's 16.5 voters per state. If weighted by population, 98 respondents would represent all of California and 2 would represent all of Wyoming.

There were over 154 million voters in the 2020 election. A little basic arithmetic reveals that the survey questioned .0005 of 1% of the number of actual voters in 2020. It's absurd to suggest that some magic formula can correctly identify the demographic of any one person who accurately represents 187,000 others.

If even a half-dozen respondents are mis-identified, that represents a shift of over a million votes. This is nonsense.

.

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Thank you for this.

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If you don't mind, Jerry, I quoted you in my Trump Headline Corrector Substack:

https://ruminato.substack.com/p/trump-headline-corrector-february

Let me know if you have any objections to this. Thanks for the math. I'm not so good at the maths!

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My thoughts EXACTLY! Beyond irresponsible NYT!

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Most polls are about that sample size. That's why so much effort goes into (or should go into) selecting a proper representative sample. That's why there are whole university programs studying the science and math behind polling. And a number of highly regarding polling organizations are actually affiliated with universities for that reason (Quinnipiac is probably the best-known example).

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Even reports citing Quinipiac deserve scrutiny because I've heard a few reports that used their polls and my bs detector went off.

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Yes, with all statistics, even the highest-quality ones, understanding the context, finding out the exact wording of the questions, and also who paid for it is important. The difference between a high-quality one and a poor one is more in having this information available.

One of my favorite quotes is supposed to be from an unlikely source (Lenin): "Never believe a statistic that you didn't manipulate yourself".

IMO, it's incredibly important not to cherry-pick polls based on the results you want to be true, because that just feeds dangerous groupthink.

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I do fill out polls/answer poll questions on occasion and I've notice for some of them, there is no right answer that would be the answer I would pick. You have to make a choice among unsatisfactory answers. So I am a little suspicious of some polls.

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Agreed. I just don't trust pools whether they're what I want to hear or not.

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“Thank you for, once again, talking me off the ledge.”

Why do you keep going back out on the ledge?

Having read these types of analyses from Jay several times why do you keep believing the sky is falling when clearly it’s not?

Yes, we need to be diligent and unrelenting in making sure Biden wins. We cannot do that if we keep willingly accepting the Republican’s polling lies.

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Its a visceral reaction

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Thank you for writing the right words for me!

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You got it my friend

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Out of the past 12 elections since 1976, the early voting has been predictive of the actual vote results in November 3 times. 9 times it was wrong.

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Early voting or polling?

In my state the early voting numbers are not released until after election day. They don't want them to taint the electorate.

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Polling. My bad.

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I'm convinced my spellcheck is sentient and hates me. It will sub in a word I don't want for one I typed!

Polling isn't what it used to be. And I think it's getting worse.

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lol....my spell check has done some doozies....and sadly i never check.

Have you ever been called for a poll? i have...3 times now over the past 5 or 6 yrs. Every time i get off the phone i pronounce the questions are biased as is the pollster, and it does not matter if you are left or right.

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Yes, now I get email polls from what seems to be a reputable company (I forget which one, maybe SSSC? Some form of initials.) The questions are ok but there are few follow up questions.

I used to get a lot of phone polls which I always found frustrating because a lot of time there was no answer that I would use from their multiple choice options. At the time, I never thought of saying - Nothing applies, skip the question. That is what I should have done. Instead I went with the closest that came to my view which sometimes wasn't very close.

I think they stopped calling me because I would give long answers to when they wanted a yes or no.

I also used to get called from the GOP since my ex was a registered Republican. Those were fun! I believe I skewed a few polls but my responses probably got thrown out as not being representative of the group they wanted. 😄

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Those stats say a lot more than most polls.

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I understand it did the same for me

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Thanks for your analysis. That poll was garbage. Less than 1000 people, lots of landlines, a ton of conservative lean. No matter what polls say Dems should sprint through the finish and work as if they’re behind.

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Hi, Scott! Hope all is well with you, long time no chat!

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Hey Jay I hope you’re well! I really enjoy your page!

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More attention needs to be given to stories like the one below, plenty of threads here to pull and I sure hope the Org monitor is pulling some on the sketchy financial institutions mentioned;

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/russian-investor-made-millions-off-insider-trading-tied-to-trump-media-court-docs-say/ar-BB1hcRFK

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We are looking into this further so are some friends just fyi

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This reply made my day, Thank you so much! 💙

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I’m glad! Someone’s gotta follow the money! 💰 👍👍

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"The businessman, Anton Postolnikov, is the owner of a Caribbean bank that caters to the porn industry."

Well isn't that a shocking development, he wrote in Substack's phantom sarcasm font.

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And rather timely since a trial will (hopefully) start this month in a case involving an adult film star who had unprotected sex with a self proclaimed germaphobe (and habitual liar) may justice prevail. 💙

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Just once I'd like Cohn to run a poll through his brilliant Siena people that tracks how people feel about every single legal case he's engaged in.

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It would still come out biased.

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Someone has to do it! Maybe for the fringe benefits. :D

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As they say in work Zoom meetings, "We should probably take this offline!" :D

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Yet another reminder, that's still not reported enough or in-depth: everything leads to Russia (Nancy Pelosi was right).

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So was Hillary.

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Also take a look at Teri Kanefield 's Substack blog "The Russian Disinformation Attack and the Disappearing Rabbit Trick"

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Thank you , yes, it's in my Inbox as I have to set aside a larger window of time to review her excellent insight. Anybody not subscribing to her already should do so! 💙

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Here's a link: https://terikanefield.com/the-russian-disinformation-attack-and-the-disappearing-rabbit-trick/

(and new readers should also follow the link near the top of this one to her previous post for more history of relations between GOP and Russians)

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Nate Cohn, who is NYT's main pollster dude, claimed in a newsletter the day before the poll that the poll was mostly cell-phone. But Jay's info here is strong enough to demonstrate how flawed the poll is. Women tied? There is no chance of that. If anything, women are more freaked out now than ever, not just in my personal experience, but as evidenced by special election results.

And the Dean Phillips thing is a joke. Cohn's agenda needs to be examined by somebody with closer ties to the Times than most of us have.

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Maybe there's a money trail there.

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I don't think it's that nefarious. I think the people in media want a vigorous horse race. It's not interesting to them unless there is a fight. So if it looks like it's lopsided, they are going to ignore that to sell the Neck and Neck Coverage! To get people reading and interested. Sort of - It it bleeds it leads.

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It's not necessarily nefarious - it's just that some groups are paying for polls to be slanted which is annoying.

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Oh, There's always money in the mix.

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100%

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It's one of the reasons I keep my landline. ;) I do answer polls from time to time. Lately I have a polling company contact me via email but in past years it was via phone.

My ex was a registered republican so I would also do their polls. Although I think I messed their numbers up. They haven't called for a few years, I think they were on to me.

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Jay, thank you so much! And here’s a follow up question that the NYT didn’t report because their commissioned poll didn’t dare ask it: “Given your concerns about his age, will you still vote for Joe Biden?” The reason they didn’t report it is because they didn’t ask it. The reason they didn’t ask it is because the answer would have been a resounding YES and therefore it wouldn’t have been “news” and clickbait for the NYT. So instead, America’s ‘paper of record’ pays for poll of less than 1000 citizens and puts it on the top of Page One, soon to be reposted across the nation in the next 72 hours “as if” it is a proven fact. Shameless.

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Polls are notorious for not having good follow up questions.

Is the country headed in the right direction?

Follow up - Who is responsible for that?

I.e, I might say the country is headed in the wrong direction but it's because of book banning, voter suppression, rise of Christian Nationalism, loss of reproductive agency, etc. Which is a far cry from It's all Joe Biden's fault.

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The fascist playbook is to incite confusion, despair, and make you THINK you're in the minority so you won't vote Democrat! Take heart, everyone, this is not so! I am part of several large groups and I can tell you those wanting Democracy are in the majority. Don't be fooled by polls or other propaganda. I spent many years in marketing and I can tell you it's mostly smoke and mirrors.

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Spread the word.

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Once more, an excellent analysis and column. Thanks so much for this. I found the explanation of the Latino vote especially interesting.

One additional point about the women. Not only is Trump claiming sole responsibility for Dobbs, he has been found by both a jury and Judge Kaplan to be a rapist. I doubt these factors will cause those women who abandoned Trump in 2020 to return to his fold.

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His cult is strong but he doesn't have such a firm grip on Independents. Now add in women who need IVF and people who know women who need IVF. And some of those people are Republicans. But his cult will back him, it's the new RINO Republicans that are backing a bit away.

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AMÉN!!!

And one reader was savvy enough to look into the “Sienna” aspect—who is doing the polling? It’s a small, Catholic-based school. Dominionist politics. I wonder how much of their funding comes from the likes of Leonard Leo, Peter Thiel, Charles KKKoch….you get the drift.

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Sienna has been doing polling for decades. They are usually well respected. But they may be designing poll questions that elicit a certain response.

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Thank you for that bit of info. I suspected there was more bias than anticipated and this highlights it to a greater degree. Their politics alone call their pulling into question.

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Thank you! Reading you daily is more effective than tranquilizers or 24/7 weed consumption. I’m so on the edge of…everything feels like an imminent disaster.

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Take back your power.

Get involved: postcard/write letters, text, canvass, phone bank and, of course, VOTE. Doing one small thing can have a big impact and, if nothing else, will make you feel better.

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Follow Jess Craven on here and sign up for Resistbot! There are daily actions you can take, she sends scripts and everything. Also look into progressivesecretary.org, they are wonderful!

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Thanks!

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Vote blue ! ! !

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And bring all your friends, family, acquaintances and strangers along with you.

Write postcards and letters, phone bank, text, canvas. Ignore Polls. See Results. Spread the word.

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Thank you again! You confirmed one of my reasons for canceling my subscription to the NYT and instead subscribing to The Status Kuo and other Substack authors. Happy Sunday all!

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I'm close to cancelling my subscription, after this latest poll.

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I cancelled last year because of the disgust at the way NYT editorial people mis-lead with the headings, placement of items on the front page (or not!) and burying the lede way down inside some articles - amongst others like both-sidsing & apparent bias. Then I weakened because "election year, legal cases" & the offer of cheap re-subscribe - last month cancelled AGAIN & told them why! They do have some good reporters, BUT it is the owners who profit from my sub, so...

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I'm really at a loose as to where to turn to after canceling nyt and wapo.

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🤷🏻‍♀️I hear ya! I am on Post.news for general stuff & respectful engagement, plus I follow direct people like Jay & others I came to trust before 🐦🐦 went down the gurgler. Plus local news outlets to keep them open & reporting, & there are a few good podcasts also. 🧐Was easier when 🐦🐦 was less of a 🤡💩🤡💩😡😡😡 as a "one stop shop" where these people used to hang out & keep us up to date eh? 😵‍💫

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I'm not freaking out, the media is freaking out. I stopped listening to the NYT months ago. If I think a problem exists, I come here for sanity.

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I listen to them so I can push back!

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I eliminate the middle man. 🤣

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Exactly!!!!!

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Ditto.

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Me too

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NYT doing Bannon’s work of flooding the zone.

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I’d like to point out some other flaws in their poll.

Look at the % of people they polled by population density: 24% city, 41% suburb, 35% rural. The actual population density in America: 31% urban, 55% suburban, 14% rural. They are over-representing rural voters by almost 3 to 1 in this poll. It doesn’t appear they corrected for this at all.

Also, 35% of their respondents are from the “South” region, only 20% from the northeast. Although they don’t specify exactly what that means, this doesn’t appear to be anywhere close to an even distribution.

Finally, 66% of their respondents were white. White people are 57.8% of the population according to the latest census.

In summary, this poll HEAVILY over represents southern rural white voters.

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Thanks Jay. I feel that polls aren’t that accurate. They have been wrong so many times.

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The polls got Trump’s support in the first primaries very wrong.

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But the average miss by primary polls is 8%. As you've noted elsewhere. They've been over for Trump and under for Biden.

But my concern is not those that have voted, it's those that will stay home in November.

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Hello Jay, so after posting link to your substack (with an admonition to please subscribe) I got hit with too many “well the Red States are poised to overturn Biden electors & SCROTUS will let them” replies.

Please please please offer some hope! Thanks again. Susan

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Jay bless you

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As I've already indicated the pills haven't been my go to source for nearly a decade.

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Pills? or polls? Both could be helpful or hurtful....

:)

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🤣🤣🤣 Polls. Although pills could help if we pay too close attention to the polls.🤣🤣🤣

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So grateful to read this. You have taught me to stop and not give a knee jerk reaction to everything. Staying calm here in Philadelphia! ✌️ (The NYT sucks….I’m so glad I cancelled my subscription)

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On my to do list for tomorrow. I’ve heard they don’t make it easy

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You have to call them. And I told them exactly why!

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Trust me, they’ll hear my unvarnished opinion!

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It took me 2 or 3 minutes to cancel online. Just cancelled this afternoon, easy ah.

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Omg I am so happy I canceled

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Thank you, Jay, as others have noted for keeping us off the ledge. And David Pepper has a great podcast post today which also calmed my nerves. Let’s make sure everyone is registered and then get out the vote.

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