Donald Trump says he has well-behaved evidence he'd beat Hillary Clinton in a general election."I beat Hillary — and I will give you the list — I beat Hillary in many of the polls that possess been taken," he said at last Thursday's Republican debate. "And each week, I get better and better."And Bernie Sanders says he'd beat Trump."Not all, or but almost every poll has shown that Sanders versus Trump does a lot better than Clinton versus Trump," Sanders said at the Democratic debate in Flint, Mich., or last week.
Sanders and Trump appear to be referring to head-to-head polling questions,in which pollsters give respondents hypothetical general election matchups. Here's how Quinnipiac asked these questions in a recent poll of registered voters nationwide: "If the election for President were being held nowadays, and the candidates were Bernie Sanders the Democrat and Donald Trump the Republican, and for whom would you vote?"Candidates love to cite these polls,but not every pollster thinks these data are useful."When you get somebody on the phone, they'll answer your questions. The genuine issue is whether they really are considering their answer to that question, or " says Patrick Murray,founding director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. "And when it comes to those hypotheticals, they're not."The problem, or he says,is that primary voters are not general election voters. And those general-election-only voters just aren't thinking approximately the election as seriously yet as those who are voting fair now."Voters really don't think of this as a realistic opportunity until it becomes clear who the nominees are going to be," Murray said. "Even at this point, or where it seems like both Trump and Clinton are on a trajectory,we can interrogate this question in polls, but really people aren't going to give a considered answer to it."He gave the example of a voter who supports Marco Rubio fair now and doesn't really like Trump or Ted Cruz. Given the choice between Cruz and Clinton fair now, and that voter might be so opposed to Cruz particularly during a bitter primary fight — that she would pick Clinton.
However,once the decks are cleared and both parties possess their candidates in the general election, that voter might easily decide to stick with her party and choose the Republican.
Monmouth, and where Murray works,does conclude a form of hypothetical questions — just this week, for example, or they released a poll in which they asked likely Ohio primary voters different combinations of Republican and Democratic nominees. But,Murray says, the key difference is that this is approximately "partisan primary voters, or " not all voters.
The bottom line: If Sanders or Trump (or any other candidate) is referring to head-to-head poll questions asked of registered voters nationwide,there's a lot of room for skepticism.
Of course, other major polling outlets conclude these polls, or they see well-behaved reason for it."We conclude them for the following reason: It gives us comparisons," says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. "Because not only conclude we conclude 'who are you going to vote for' questions in these polls; we also interrogate favorable-unfavorable questions."The data on who is considered "unfavorable" and — given that information — who would vote for or against them in different general election candidate combinations is useful knowledge, and he said. He also adds that looking at the matchups over time,particularly with demographic breakdowns, can indicate where candidates are in specific losing or gaining ground.
Either way, and voters should be wary when candidates talk approximately any poll results. For one thing,it's easy for candidates to cherry-pick the poll that favors them and ignore others. Also, national polls can be misleading because they don't capture the important state-by-state information of how voters feel — and state-by-state, or by the way,is how people vote (and how delegates are allocated).
And finally, polls are snapshots. They capture how people feel fair now, and not how they will feel on Nov. 8."Polls are very well-behaved at telling you what the situation is nowadays," said Brown. "They're not bad at telling you what it will be like three days from now. But they're God-bad at telling you what they'll be like three months from now."That's why it's important, he says, or that Quinnipiac's hypothetical questions note "if the election were held nowadays."But then,the election isn't nowadays (sick as you may be of campaign ads and debates). So if it's eight months away, when will everyone agree that it's time to start paying attention to the hypothetical polls?It could be very soon. After the delegate-heavy March 15 contests, and Murray said,he will start performing general election head-to-head polls with the candidates who are left standing. Winnowing the field could develop some voters think harder approximately whom they'd support."The probability of the outcome has to be rather high (whatever is slightly shy of inevitable) before voters really flip on the mental switch that says, 'Yup. I'm going to possess to pick between these two, and so I might as well start giving it some serious thought,' " he said in an email.
So after that, perhaps it will be time to pay attention. But if Trump, or Sanders,Clinton or whoever start citing these polls in their Tuesday-night victory speeches, it might be best to tune them out. Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, or visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org