Here Are More Harrowing Details About Nex Benedict
Idaho Tribune Announces Cash Reward for Evidence of 'Hate Crime' Against Basketball Team
Fascism Alert: Washington State to Offer Cash Reward for Reporting 'Hate Speech' and...
BREAKING: Democratic Mega Donor Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced for Crypto Crimes
Jewish Democrats Endorse Challengers to Squad Members
That's Gonna Leave a Mark: Riley Gaines SCHOOLS Scott Wiener After He Calls...
Politicizing the Baltimore Bridge Tragedy and Attacking Conservative Media is a New Low...
Missouri Attorney General Announces Suit Against Biden’s Student Loan Cancellation
The LEAST They Could Do: IL Parole Board Members Resign After Prisoner They...
Righteous Anger Boils Over as NYPD Union Tells City Council NOT to Attend...
Rob Reiner Says Taylor Swift Could Single-Handedly Save American Democracy
We Have So MANY Questions: Man Marries Conjoined Twin and Well, There is...
Timing of Biden-Harris Campaign's Attempted Slam on Trump is a SHAMELESS Fail
Paying Their Respects: NYT Announces Joe Lieberman's Passing With Hilarious Election Denia...
Joy Reid Dragged for Claiming GOP is Anti-DEI Because They Can't Stand Black...

Nate Silver: PPP's polls suck, but I'll keep using them

As Twitchy reported Wednesday, the Public Policy Polling Company, a firm that conducts polls for Democrats, has come under fire from FiveThirtyEight editor Nate Silver and others for withholding the results of some of its polls.

Advertisement

Yesterday PPP came in for a second round of thrashing after Nate Cohn of The New Republic raised serious questions about PPP’s fly-by-the-pants approach to polling:

After examining PPP’s polls from 2012 and conducting a lengthy exchange with PPP’s director, I’ve found that PPP withheld controversial elements of its methodology, to the extent it even has one, and treated its data inconsistently. The racial composition of PPP’s surveys was informed by whether respondents voted for Obama or John McCain in 2008, even though it wasn’t stated in its methodology. PPP then deleted the question from detailed releases to avoid criticism. Throughout its seemingly successful run, PPP used amateurish weighting techniques that distorted its samples—embracing a unique, ad hoc philosophy that, time and time again, seemed to save PPP from producing outlying results. The end result is unscientific and unsettling.

PPP’s opacity and flexibility goes too far. In employing amateurish weighting techniques, withholding controversial methodological details, or deleting questions to avoid scrutiny, the firm does not inspire trust. We need pollsters taking representative samples with a rigorous and dependable methodology. Unfortunately, that’s not PPP.

Once again, Silver took to Twitter to blast PPP:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Silver will continue to incorporate PPP’s questionable polls in its much-heralded “poll of polls.” But don’t worry because he is going to come up with a weighting method that is “punative” to PPP and other pollsters using sketchy methodologies.

In other words: Garbage in, garbage out.

Ouch.

Editor’s note: The headline of this post has been changed because we thought of a better one.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Twitchy Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement