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Originally Posted by Wildman
I think there are some interesting factors in many of the polls. For example, Remain routinely generates a bigger lead in telephone polls compared to internet polls, where their lead is marginal at best. It would be interesting to understand what is driving that.
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I agree. I was surprised by that as well. One would probably expect the opposite as, one could argue, an online poll would likely yield more radical results. But then perhaps it has something to do with the average age of the sample groups? I don't know. But also, I'm not a pollster, so this isn't exactly my area of expertise.
There are definitely some interesting insights the polls give. But perhaps the way they are handled rather than that they exist is a problem. It is the best measure of public opinion we have, but it is still often not a good one. Mainly because public opinion is extremely difficult to measure. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have the polls, but rather that we should use them very carefully and I'm not too sure if that happens. One example: Many governments in Europe were clearly (and rightfully) alarmed by a surge in extremism so they reacted by adopting some of it. The result: They lost yet more votes. They just followed public opinion instead of shaping it and trying to explain why we do things the way we do and standing up to what they believe in. Polls are definitely useful for research, but in politics I think it's too often distracting politicians from what they should do.
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