this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024

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-53

'I am absolutely voting for Donald Trump': Undecided voters react to Biden's debate performance (www.reuters.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by lennybird@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

June 28 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. voters who were unable to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump before Thursday's presidential debate delivered their verdicts after the contest and it was almost universally bad news for Biden.

Of the 13 "undecideds" who spoke to Reuters, 10 described the 81-year-old Democratic president's performance against Republican candidate Trump collectively as feeble, befuddled, embarrassing and difficult to watch.

top 36 comments

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[–] FunderPants@lemmy.ca 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm sorry, but if you went into the debate not knowing who to vote for where the fuck have you been for eight years?

And to come out the other side saying, "yea the orange lunatic lied to my face about everything , but on the other hand Biden looked kind of tired and stumbled on his words. I think I'll vote for the convicted felon.", I mean, are we humans really just this stupid?

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I mean, are we humans really just this stupid?

Yes, yes we are. I feel your pain. I said it before and I'll say it again: I would personally vote for a corpse, but it's not me you have to convince.

And if I want to be slightly more kind and less impatient, many humans may mean well, but are so woefully uneducated and uninformed that they fall prey for the mass amount of right-wing misinformation from billions of dollars injected into the media-stream.

[–] retrospectology@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is what happens when you try to substitute undecided voters for your progressive base. It's always been a dumb, high-risk strategy, but it's the only way neoliberals can put off being phased out.

[–] Riccosuave@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I don't know who downvoted you because you are exactly fucking right.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

Hey, just curious: who is down-voting this Reuters article and why? Come now, don't be shy!

I encourage people not to bury their heads in sand to ignore hard truths.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 37 points 4 months ago (2 children)

13 people is a pretty piss-poor basis for an article.

[–] the_tab_key@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

So is 8, but this post is getting upvoted just fine...https://lemmy.world/post/17050256

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

which is a shame.

[+] lennybird@lemmy.world -14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

This is a focus-group of undecided voters -- a small population set to begin with and a sample set designed to be small, but who will clearly decide this election on the margins. You do understand how focus groups work and quite literally all campaigns use these, correct?

And finally, little data is better than no data. Nobody came away from the debate thinking Biden won; so it's not particularly a stretch to see this would hurt him with critical battleground state undecided voters.

Edit: Whew, talk about vote manipulation. I'm astounded by the complete and utter lack of substantive rebuttal.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

13 "undecideds" is a poor sampling. Given one of the "undecideds" was basically between Biden or third party, they didn't control for any "never-Bideners" or "never-Trumpers".

Add on this level of ignorance:

Hands down I would vote for a liar and a convict over a person who doesn't seem to be all there mentally.

You're basically scraping the bottom of the barrel to force a clickbait headline and choosing the most bombastic quote from them to include.

You're getting downvotes because it's pretty much never the case of someone honestly and in good faith posting seemingly pro-Trump rhetoric. It always starts out nice, but devolves into the quote above like "I like the convicted felon".

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You don't publish initial results without a significant population sample. 13 people is an abysmal sample size. You need around 10% of a population polled up until about 1,000 people because of the way the curve levels out. 100 people minimum to get something remotely confident. The confidence level of this poll is so low that the publishing of it is irresponsible and unethical.

To your argument about the other poll having only 8, that's also irresponsible. Both articles are clearly jumping to conclusions in an effort to grab views. However, that it received a more positive response is clearly indicative of the way the lemmy population leans. That's really about all you can grab from that... Well, that and people have no idea how statistical averaging works.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Again, you don't seem to understand the intent of focus groups or why they're used by political campaigns. In a way focus groups are more akin to Case Studies, which are still extremely insightful.

Besides, we already have a broader set of polling data of battleground states, and what we see here is a reflection of those wider, scientific polls that didn't bode well for Joe Biden even pre-Debate.

The mere fact that ANY random sample of undecided voters came away with these views, is downright dangerous.

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Oh no, I very much do. I have a degree in psychology that requires being able to do statistical analysis for research.

You use a focus group to elicit qualitative, not quantitative, info from a targeted group in a study, not as the study itself. The issue is, it's not meant for broad populations or for quantitative studies. Even then, the data is easily skewed by biases from the group themselves, the moderator, and the interpreter and shouldn't be the only thing used.

Focus groups are meant for things like quality indicators, where you use a range of them in general analysis, which can help to triangulate where an issue is.

To properly employ a focus group, you would first need to poll an appropriate sample size of undecided voters then you target demographics within the sample to gain insight into why they answered their poll as they did.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

And how, qualitatively, did these focus groups triangulate where undecided voters are on the issue of who to vote for?

To properly employ a focus group, you would first need to poll an appropriate sample size of undecided voters then you target demographics within the sample to gain insight into why they answered their poll as they did.

Isn't it quite probable they did exactly this? They certainly didn't just pull these people off the streets. They had to aggregate undecided voters to begin with, after all.

I think it's reaching for straws to suggest this isn't saying what we already recognize from polling conducted in battleground states.

Edit:

About 20% of voters say they have not picked a candidate in this year's presidential race, are leaning toward third-party options or might not vote at all, according to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Reuters interviewed 15 such voters ahead of Thursday's debate, and they agreed to be interviewed again after the event about whether the debate changed their views.

[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Then they need to state it, because the only data they've given is that they asked a group of 13 people, one group, which is still not an adequate sample. Period.

That, right there, is why focus groups shouldn't be used for this to generalize a larger population, because the data is being misinterpreted to sell a biased story! Probability would be estimated if they actually conducted a full study. Which they clearly didn't.

And you can't use previously gathered data from battleground states to estimate results after an event. They're snapshots of an opinion at that given time. You can't use them for an event that occurred after the fact. Again, that's unethical and inappropriate.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

About 20% of voters say they have not picked a candidate in this year's presidential race, are leaning toward third-party options or might not vote at all, according to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Reuters interviewed 15 such voters ahead of Thursday's debate, and they agreed to be interviewed again after the event about whether the debate changed their views.

The data wasn't good before, and it doesn't take a statistician to know they're going to be as-bad or worse than before post-debate. I'll happily take that bet with you and circle back in the coming weeks as state-wide polling proves this.

[–] Marleyinoc@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You want the reason we're down voting you and the post? Because anyone undecided is a fucking moron so we don't give a shit what they think. Same with those voting for Trump.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

That's a terrible take. You know why that is?

Because undecided swing-voters in battle-ground states will decide this election on the margins. It's Not you. It's not me. It's those stupid undecided voters that we unfortunately need to cater to, and Joe Biden lost some of those voters in the debate. If the electorate were informed and intelligent, we wouldn't have either of these candidates in the first place.

Reminder that 2020 was decided by something like 40,000 votes thanks to the electoral college.

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 months ago

Damn, I'm just imagining your face if Trump wins the election if those people you're trying to remain ignorant of tip the election.

Ignorance is never a virtue.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

sure, but it's not article worthy.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world -3 points 4 months ago

Given how pivotal this moment is, I think it kind of is. Considering only 40,000 votes decided 2020, a handful of undecided voters is extremely vital. What other format would you have it in?

[–] lets_get_off_lemmy@reddthat.com 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Focus groups aren't meant to be used for gaining an understanding of a broad swath of the population. Focus groups are used for exploratory research, concept testing, and understanding the "why" behind opinions and behaviors.

If you want to generalize trends towards large populations, you're going to need a large sample size. It's statistics that suggests that many respondents will leave you with extremely low confidence in the outcome.

For example, if you are trying to judge the voting preferences of a population of 100,000 people, you'll need 383 randomly sampled people in a survey to reach a 95% confidence interval. 13 is nowhere near the amount of people required to cover those that considered themselves "independents" before the debate.

That's not to say this tells us nothing, but it's by no means a predictive study.

*edit: I actually would say it's harmful because I think that it portrays the narrative as if it is predictive, when it's not.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Not to say this falls on deaf ears because I appreciate your actually understanding how scientific surveys work, but as you said yourself: These focus-groups of undecided voters are certainly warning-signs, and if it was flipped around, users would be up-voting this and BIden's campaign would be touting this as a great thing.

I'm all for larger studies being conducted to show the damage done; the question will then be: How will you change your perception on what needs to be done?

And golly, if only we had large sample sizes of populations comparing Donald Trump and Joe Biden in battleground swing-states. If only we could then compare those numbers to their respective numbers in 2020.... That, combined with said focus group insights, sure would be useful! /s

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2024/05/13/new-york-times-presidential-poll-donald-trump-joe-biden-battleground-states

https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/swing-state-polling-may-2024

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-poised-beat-joe-biden-6-key-battleground-states-poll-1904688

And that's just the start, pre-debate no less. I cannot think of a single data-point where Biden isn't doing significantly worse than his 2020 performance. National approval ratings, black/hispanic vote, voter enthusiasm, etc.

[–] TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

One of us... One of us.... One of us...

Lemmy is just as bad as reddit but with fewer people. Downvotes aren't tied with the source but just the content.

"Space garbage kills puppy" post will be downvoted to oblivion and "Reddit CFO becomes homeless says BuzzFeed paparazzi" will get 1000 up votes.