I wonder if this helps explains why polling has been getting worse than usual since 2016. (In relation to presidential polling (midterm polling has been historically accurate).

Chart Source, Axios

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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    1 day ago

    I found out my brother has been a Trumper since 2016, and keeps it secret from his friends, who he knows would not be okay with it. Not so much “shy”, as “knows he’s an asshole, but literally only cares about religion”. He’s just a misogynist, is the reality.

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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    2 days ago

    Voters across the political spectrum said they’ve lied about their voting: 27% of Democrats acknowledged it, while 24% of Republicans and 20% of independents did so. The survey didn’t ask exactly how, why or to whom they’d lied.

    This is what I was looking for. It’s not reliable data about which direction it may be influencing polling, but if a self-identified “democrat” is lying, presumably it is to conservative family or friends about conservative support (and vice versa). This would mean there is slightly more “shy” democrats than republicans, but with a very large “independent” black box.

  • DragonTypeWyvern
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    2 days ago

    I haven’t lied, but I’ve let a hot conservative continue to make assumptions.

  • Affidavit@lemm.ee
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    I wonder how many of these were people who voted for Trump in 2016 and now feel shame/embarrassment after seeing the entailing colossal clusterfuck they were partially responsible for.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      2 days ago

      That’s likely a really low percentage unfortunately.

      I think the estimates are only 2-4% of Trump 2016 voters voted Biden 2020.

      But there definitely is something to the “shy Trump voter” theory.

        • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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          2 days ago

          Shy Trump voter is the main theory about why pollsters consistently underestimate Trump.

          A good part of Trump voters are idiots who brag about it. But there’s a decent chunk who thinks he’s an arse, but are deluded into thinking that he’d be better for immigration/the economy or whatever and vote for him without telling anyone because they are embarrassed.

          • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            I know.

            I’d be embarrassed to be an out and proud fascist too!

            The Shy Trump Voter theory is basically the theory that a whole lot of Americans are fascists, support fascist policies and leaders, but are self aware enough to realize they’d be socially ostracized for doing so openly, brazenly, enthusiastically.

            I no longer care to coddle, or reframe the confusion or embarrassment or stupidity and ignorance of people who… know what they are doing is wrong, so they lie about what they’re doing.

  • ironsoap@lemmy.one
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    This is a decent video explaining some of the background on why polling got worse from business insider. Essentially it has more to do with conservatives being underreported (they don’t like talking to pollsters) then Gen Z, Millennials, or Gen Xs. Not saying that didn’t play a part, but Nate Silver has talked about this as well in his Silver Bulletin.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      Yes but these are definitely hypotheses. Fivethirtyeight has extensively covered it. In 2016 they covered it a lot, did a post-mortem on the election, and said the industry said they’ll fix it for next time, then in 2020 we got even worse polling errors.

      I miss Nate from the fivethirtyeight days. It’s sad to see his model paywalled.

      Random but if you’re a polling nerd this site is a godsend: https://swingstates.vercel.app/

      its based on the 538 API, they also have a mastodon and bsky bot

      This cycle a lot of polling has oversamples GOP. And they are using a new technique wherein they weight polls based on previous vote. Which is interesting I guess. Anyways, we’ll see what happens in a week.