As with other polls gauging Americans' support for Ukraine, there was a significant partisan divide. Only 16% of Democrats thought the U.S. was providing too much aid, while 39% thought it was about right, and 24% said it was not enough.

As with other polls gauging Americans’ support for Ukraine, there was a significant partisan divide. Only 16% of Democrats thought the U.S. was providing too much aid, while 39% thought it was about right, and 24% said it was not enough.

  • brothershamus@kbin.social
    2·
    11 months ago

    So, let’s recap: Polls are wrong. That’s a given, but we use polls all the time, so why do we do that if they’re wrong? Because they’re a particular kind of wrong that varies over time. Still wrong though.

    Imagine thinking “reality television” was reality. In fact, that’s how we watch “reality television” because that’s how our brains work - we “buy” the premise of the show so we can enjoy it. It’s not reality though. It’s highly produced and manipulated by editing, production choices, music, etc. Same thing with polls.

    Here’s the poll results. As opposed to the article about them.

    The methodology of the poll is a broken link. But we can follow the sitemap to how they do it. It’s fucked up. Basically, they have a group of pre-selected, “recruited” participants who agree to take polls every so often.

    Full stop - do you agree to take polls? For money? no money? It’s weird. At least it’s not reliant 100% on cold-calling people who actually answer unknown callers and plying them with 20 questions on how they feel about The Politics.

    Respondents have been recruited over the years, and they take our surveys frequently. The panel provides a relatively efficient method of data collection compared with fresh samples because the participants have already agreed to take part in more surveys. The major effort required with a fresh sample – making an initial contact, persuading respondents to take part and gathering the necessary demographic information for weighting – is not needed once a respondent has joined a panel.
    (Emphasis added)

    Also, if they don’t have a computer, they’ll give them a tablet to take the survey on. Which, to be honest, seems fucking adorable. But I digress.

    At any rate, There were 5,200 pre-selected polling drones who were asked questions about the “Israel-Hamas” war. That’s right. This is a poll about Ukraine-Russia that these people have beent taking since January of 2023. The most recent version changed it to “Israel-Hamas” poll, where they just tacked on at the end “oh by the way, how do you also feel about Ukraine?”

    Which is just super fucked up. In many ways.