YES!!! All the online
polls show I won the
#Debate
bigly!
Polls actually don't mean anything. John Johnson an MIT PHD in statistics stated earlier today on the ABC "Full Measure" news program, political polls are complete and total nonsense. In fact, during the program he specifically mentioned GALLOP, which sponsored the debate tonight, and has conducted presidential polls since 1935, but doesn't even conduct a presidential poll anymore since the results are totally meaningless.
A poll is merely a "snap shot" of opinion at any given moment, and is a pretty blurry one at that. Gallop and statisticians like professor Johnson at MIT found that, in focus group and polls, people often misrepresent themselves. Some even outright LIE. Some out of the desire to be identified with a
group (a strong human impulse), even though secretly they are not, and others for the notoriety of being selected for a poll. They'll claim they are members of a political party when they are not. They will also claim to be registered voters, when they are not. On internet polls some people vote hundreds of times in a deliberate, but dishonest attempt to slant the poll in their candidates favor.
Even the poll takers are sometimes guilty of fraud. They'll claim their poll is not biased, and rig the results in favor of a certain candidate based on the way the questions are slanted or couched, referred to as "Push Polling". Five-Thirty-Eight (which claims to be the most honest and unbiased poll), constructs it's results from an aggregate of various polls, some of which are clearly Push Polls. So much for 538 and honesty.
The last problem is people who claim to be decided, but who change their minds at the last second. That's the guy who steps into the polling booth and stays in there for 15 minutes. Don't forget to bring a folding lawn chair along with you this time, because I imagine there are going to be plenty of these guys.
You can also conduct your own poll. The vast majority of the people I talk to (about 80 %) say they aren't going to vote in this election at all. That includes Republicans, Democrats, Independents and probably some people who haven't voted anyway since Jimmy Carter was elected president. In general, the sense I get is that most people are pretty disgusted at this point.