The legacy media reported a February 9 poll that said 53% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance so far. What they glossed over: there was a margin of error of 2.5%, basically putting him at 50/50 which closely matches the partisan divide of the November election.
Before the election, we were awash in polls and we were sometimes alarmed at the reported results. We can’t just say “ignore polls” because we use them as well to show overwhelming support for legal abortion, contraception, IVF and gun safety. What you need to know is that all polls are not created equally.
Now, under Trump’s authoritarian regime, we have an additional problem: the manipulation of the media. Let’s look at some examples of the different ways polls can be manipulated, and how to evaluate them.
What Media is Reporting the Poll and Why?
Billionaire owners of legacy media have bent over backwards to curry favor with Trump. Jeff Bezos refused to allow The Washington Post to endorse Harris. After the election, political cartoons were buried, editorial expression was throttled, and many reporters and political commentators left. MSNBC’s Morning Joe made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-lago and later was forced to apologize to Trump on the air for a discussion he didn’t like. CBS’ 60 minutes settled a defamation lawsuit (that they could have easily won) for 25 million dollars. Just this week, Trump revoked AP News’ access to White House briefings because they continue to use the correct name of the Gulf of Mexico. The legacy print and television news media is now afraid to anger Trump. Keep this in mind when polls are reported by legacy media.
Who Created the Poll and Why?
Media corporations not only reports polls, they often create them. Robert Hubbell described the problem with that process in his May 14, 2024 newsletter:
“Polling has become big business for major media outlets. They get to write news stories in which they are star actors. The NY Times produces presidential polls on a monthly basis, guaranteeing exclusive stories in which it designs, conducts, and interprets polls that become front-page news for the Times. Create the news, report on the news you created, and interpret that same news for the public….
Before the election, The NYTimes polls consistently overweighted Trump’s prospects, and then dutifully reported them, even though most of its findings showed an effectively tied race. The Times analysis delves into subgroups with sample sizes so small the error bars render them meaningless. The Times treats its own polls as front-page news, but when polls showing more favorable results for Biden are reported by other outlets in the ensuing weeks, they are ignored by the Times. Because, well, those polls weren’t designed, conducted, and interpreted by the Times…”
Remember, in the end, Trump received 49.8% of the vote and Harris received 48.33%, He won by 1.5%, hardly a landslide.
Who is the pollster talking to?
Pollsters still have not adjusted to modern technology, depending on techniques developed well before cell phones existed. “Pollsters are struggling to keep up with changing technology. Not long ago, data was collected by calling voters at home on landlines. Now with the ubiquity of cell phones with caller ID, answer rates for pollsters have been plummeting. Also, some folks, maybe more than we think, just flat-out lie, to mislead the pollsters.”
What Questions are the Polls Asking?
The Roper Center, an old and highly respected pollster, has listed 20 questions that journalists should ask before they report a poll and their editor slaps on a highly provocative title to get clicks. They recommend examining the wording of the questions asked, which can reveal the bias of the group paying for the poll. But did you know the order of the questions matter too? The answers can be subtly manipulated, intentionally or not. For example, in economically troubled times, if the interviewer asks about the economy before he asks about the person’s approval of the president, the reported approval will be lower than if the order of questions was reversed.
What is the margin of error?
Pew Research has a very detailed description of what the margin of error means. Whenever you are reading a poll, pay attention to what the pollster describes as the margin of error. (Notice that this is still calculated by the pollster, who might have an ulterior motive.) Errors should get larger the smaller the sample size, because extrapolating that to the total population is less accurate.
Aren’t Poll Aggregators More Accurate?
The poll aggregator 538 (no longer owned by Nate Silver) attempts to take all the different polls and aggregate the results into one overall number. They have ranked different pollsters by 538’s evaluation of their error, bias and transparency. But basically, they mash all the polls together and report the average. My opinion? I don’t care how much you fiddle with weighting these polls, I believe in the truism: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
So What Should We Do?
If you want a more nuanced reading of the polls, turn off cable news, and ignore mainstream newspaper’s clickbait headlines. Instead, check out our media recommendations to get context. We need to be aware of the pollster’s focus and media bias which now includes clickbait headlines curry favor with the new regime.