Trump’s suit against a legendary pollster could spell disaster for the whole industry: If politicians can credibly threaten to drag any pollster through a damaging, costly lawsuit at any time, the public will lose out.
(@databyler.bsky.social)
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Does bsky do DMs? If not, email me at david.anthony.byler at gmail and I can explain! Thanks!
Would love to hear recommendations!
Does anyone know a freelance software developer who might be willing to do some work on a budget? Not a huge project
"Increase risk of loss, but increase the value of the outcome you're hoping for" can be a reasonable strategy
But often times they get the first part without the second
This also goes for primaries
At this point, the "RINO" in most primaries would do virtually the same stuff as the MAGA candidate, but just not lose
Yet MAGA is often nominated
The Gaetz -> Bondi, Hegseth -> ??? maybe thing illuminates a big weird dynamic in GOP politics
When they have running room, goodwill, capital, margin, whatever to burn, they burn it on the dumbest stuff
Bondi would do all same stuff Gaetz would. So why burn time, etc on him??
New post on the substack! I evaluate how our pre-election polls went in 2024. Feeling ~7/10, subjectively
Also -- this isn't a substack with a theme or a regular cadence. It's just me updating everyone on what's going on with my work from time to time
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Fair! At the same time, MAGA primary voters have not always been, well, strategic. TBD!
and people that is *Utah*
Related -- IIRC we did some polling in the summer of 2023 that showed Mitt Romney really unimpressive support
Not clear he would have won (or at least won easily) if he ran, esp. after seeing many people voted against Spencer Cox in the same primary
looking forward to reading!
This really matters, I think
I went back re-weighted some of our non-recall-weighted polls by recalled vote. On average it helped -- but sometimes it did nothing or hurt a little bit!
I also don't think the recalled vote debate is over. But I do hope we can go from "is it cheating to weight on recalled vote" (a view mostly advanced by people who don't themselves field surveys) to "what is the best way to measure recalled vote and construct benchmarks for such weighting?"
100% same page
We used recall in some polls and not in others. Using it more generally would have helped, but wouldn't have solved everything. I definitely feel like the engagement piece is core and unsolved
Agree! I'm a believer in vote recall and our polls would've been worse without it. However, its not the only topic and need to keep the smart thinking going. The other big focus we had this cycle was around engagement/political identity which is far trickier & worth continued innovation/conversation
Not every new variable people try will work!
Someone will find some novel way to measure political engagement, quota or weight on it or something and the results will be bad
But that's science, people! And I think getting okay with that is crucial
My hope for the recalled vote debate aftermath -- we get to a place where it's okay to try a lot of new things, not just this
We can't assume the Census and voter files will track every relevant attribute of people, esp. in this era of crazy non-response. IMO ability to try new stuff is key
If they're temporary issues, it's NBD. But, at least in the last term, you could see these episodes kind of chain together to create a low average baseline approval heading into the midterms
And, although the magnitude of shift was small, a number of the unpopular policy or competency crisis moments came with a downward tick in approval
FWIW this was one of Trump's biggest problems in the first term
Voters are like "man it would be nice if food was cheaper" and Trump is like "MATT GAETZ TIME!" (or some equivalent self-inflicted crisis)
this is how it's going *negative two months* into the administration
you're the best -- thank you!
hi!
wow a lot of you are here!
I do a lot of stuff -- polls, writing, etc. -- and it's all scattered around the internet
I started this so I can collect the best of it and circulate it to those interested! davidbyler.substack.com/subscribe
No set frequency
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i have been sharing this over and over -- and now that pence is out, i will share it one more time
why his candidacy was extremely predictably doomed, in one chart:
I really like wrike, the project management tool. TBH I'm an evangelist at this point
but who founded the company and was like "Wrike? I'm saying it out loud -- good name! No baggage!!"
this morning, with zero context or prompting, the toddler laid on the floor and said "oh noooooooooooooooooo"
glad he has fully inherited the david byler energy 🙃
every person considering a speaker run
