Polling Perspective

Polling Perspective

by digby

This is a very useful piece by Brendan Nyhan at The Upshot which basically says that people should chill a little bit about polling, gaffes and pay closer attention to endorsements and the natural rhythm of polling as the campaign wears on. All of this is based on political science observations over other campaigns, which is a limited data set. But it's still worth thinking about as we fully launch into the presidential campaign.

Here is his conclusion:

Polls play an important role in presidential primaries, influencing the strategies of the candidates, the coverage they receive from the media and the choices of voters who want to avoid wasting their vote. For political mavens they’re also often an amusing way to follow the horse race.

So go ahead and pay attention to the polls if you want, but do it smartly. Don’t overreact to individual polls or fall for weak pundit analysis. Instead, remember that campaigns have predictable rhythms and that endorsements may be a better predictor of who will ultimately prevail than who’s up or who’s down right now.

Wise words ...

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