The Witness Chronicles, June, 26, 2024

Polls, headlines, and shame on the Washington Post

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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How Not to Read Polls, and Misleading Headlines

Do 52% of swing state voters think Trump would be better for democracy?

Normally I am a fan of The Washington Post, which is why their lead headline this morning was so alarming. It read:

“Trump trusted more than Biden on democracy among key swing-state voters”

Yes, you read that right, but it is extremely misleading to the point of being irresponsible journalism, or in this case, editorial headline writing. Why? Because it does not make clear what poll they are referencing until halfway through the article.

A small intro text above the headline says The Decider Series, but there is no indication what that means.

I have news for you. This was a poll of undecided voters between the ages of 18 and 25, a very limited number of voters and a group well known to be largely disengaged from the election coverage, and the group most unlikely to vote among all age groups.

It is this kind of media manipulation that keeps people from reading the news, and instead feeds today’s short attention span readers who skim the headlines. Or worse, rely on pundits, who tend to speak in headlines, for their information.

It’s what I would expect from a Fox tabloid publication like The New York Post, alarmist, misleading, and deliberately unclear. Not telling us clearly, in the headline, that this was a very limited voter group, this is known as burying the lede because in this example, the real story was ‘52% of young, undecided voters trust Trump on democracy more than Biden’.

The only reason I highlight this is it got my attention this morning before I went back and read the story all the way through. I found it alarming but when I sorted this out I realized this is why all the alarm about polling is simply nuts.

Every poll has very specific parameters. They are a sampling of a group or group of voters and if there is more than one, it should contrast any differences or shared opinions in its results. But that kind of wonky detail is not what most of us zero in on, especially for segments of voters who are not news junkies.

It got me and I am a news junkie.

This election is characterized by events that can cause sharp shifts in opinion. Biden’s electric State of the Union address, day by day testimony during the Trump felony trial, the Trump conviction on 34 felony counts at that trial, tomorrow’s debate, and his sentencing in a few weeks, among more to come.

Each of these events are twists in the road, some huge, others possibly inconsequential. But they are significant enough to alter voters' perceptions and change the dynamic of the election. Until, that is, the next one. The debate is the current example. Like a lot of writers, I will be watching and writing about it and to be honest I have no idea how it will go down.

But I know it will change things, just as all the examples I noted have or will.

So, taking the measure of voter sentiment here and there only tells us possible trends, not anything resembling voter feelings when they walk into the voting place, over four months from now. By then most voters will have gradually either solidified their support or shifted it. Until a few weeks before, getting alarmed by polling is a waste of energy.

This is compounded by all of the media’s conscious or unconscious coverage of these temporary shifts. Let’s take the Trump convictions, the likely biggest factor in changing minds. This is a huge story and will be compounded by the sentencing on July 11th, when we could conceivably see a former president incarcerated for the first time in our history, a shameful turn of events.

We saw an immediate small but significant shift in independent voter sentiment, with about 20% now saying the convictions could negatively affect their vote for Trump. But this story has legs and its impact will accrue for months, chipping away at his credibility, barring some other unexpected turn.

This is just one example of how to read polls and headlines and how not to, but if the media keeps trumpeting these results as hard news, they are doing all of us a disservice.

~ I write The Grasshopper, an occasional letter on the creative life and it’s sister, mostly daily publication The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate. They share a free and paid subscription. I also write The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. I don’t paywall any content in these, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen.

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