I recently suggested that Trump’s polling numbers might seem worse than they actually are because some Trump supporters will be embarrassed to admit they support him. Turns out I might have been onto something (boldface mine):
There is also strong evidence that most traditional public opinion surveys inadvertently hide a segment of Trump’s supporters. Many voters are reluctant to admit to a live interviewer that they back a candidate who has adopted such divisive positions.
In matchups between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump does much better in polls conducted online, in which respondents click their answers on a computer screen, rather than in person-to-person landline and cellphone surveys.
An aggregation by RealClearPolitics of 10 recent telephone polls gives Clinton a nine-point lead over Trump. In contrast, the combined results for the YouGov and Morning Consult polls, which rely on online surveys, place Clinton’s lead at four points.
Why is this important? Because an online survey, whatever other flaws it might have, resembles an anonymous voting booth far more than what you tell a pollster does.
In a May 2015 report, Pew Research analyzed the differences between results derived from telephone polling and those from online Internet polling. Pew determined that the biggest differences in answers elicited via these two survey modes were on questions on which social desirability bias — that is, “the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment and project a favorable image to others” — played a role…
I asked a number of experts about the disparity between online and phone polls. All of them – Alan Abramowitz, John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, political scientists who specialize in the analysis of poll data — agreed that in the case of highly contentious issues, respondents can be more willing to express their real views anonymously, to a computer rather than to a human.
Kathy Francovic, the former CBS polling director who now works for YouGov, told me that “it’s easier to express potentially ‘unacceptable’ responses on a screen than it is to give them to a person.”
One study suggests Trump picks up six points with likely voters, depending on how the poll was conducted, which could mean the online versus phone poll differences are ‘real.’
I still think Clinton is the strong favorite, but this should be cause for concern.
mikethemadbiologist
I’d be curious as to what controls were in place to stop people from submitting more than once. Just like “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”, “on the internet, nobody knows your dog has 24 different email addresses to choose from”. The rapid rate at which banned abusive users get back on Twitter or FB is clue enough that these things aren’t perfect.
I think you’re right but I don’t fully understand why Trump is much more a concern over Hillary, in your case given your stance about the Iraq war. His rhetoric and style can be a little disturbing at times, but his concrete views seem to be in the right place for the most part. He’s very clear that the trillions poured into the M.E. should not have been. He cites healthcare and infrastructure. He’s very clear he’s not going to bomb Iran, and he is not going to toe the line demonising Russia. I think he’s also spat his coffee out over what was done to Libya.
Done by Hillary Clinton. Who was challenged on that issue recently to which her reply was “they have democracy”. Which absolutely is not a true or honest answer to the hell Libyan’s now face. Hillary was also 100% for the Iraq war and remains unapologetic. She is beating the war drums about Iran….a country that we were first told was on the cusp of nukes in the 90’s. Yet it remains the case they don’t appear to be building a bomb. Also, even if they were, the danger of that is massively overstated. A small rudimentary nuke from Iran, because they’d only have one or two, would never be used by Iran because that would be suicide. Israel has 130 nukes. It’s rubbish that Iran is an irrational player. If they were, that would already have taken its toll long ago.
TSo why exactly is Hillary Clinton a preference over Trump? They are both deeply flawed but one of them has a trackrecord that guarantees more of the same. She’s a cynical power player. He’s an unknown, with anti-establishment or outsider psychology. Why not play the wild card?