Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Ignore Exit Polls
As a rule of thumb, I’m convinced that at this point we should ignore anyone who is claiming to know how the election will or might turn out. It’s all either spin intended to get those who haven’t voted yet to vote a certain way, or else sensationalized nonsense intended to glorify whatever journalist or media outlet is reporting it.
But exit polls are particularly heinous, and Nate Silver has ten reasons why you should tune out when the talking heads start nattering about them.
The most interesting reason is this, I think:
Exit polls were particularly bad in this year’s primaries. They overstated Barack Obama’s performance by an average of about 7 points.
I actually think that most polls in the United States have overstated Obama’s support. Of course, there’s only one poll that matters, and we’ll see how that one comes out tonight.
