If you’ve spent some time on the political realm of the internet today, you have probably seen a headline or two to the effect of: “Almost two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to step aside, poll finds.”
That is what this AXIOS Headline had to say: www.axios.com/…
Even The Guardian parroted the poll: www.theguardian.com/...
Looks to the left.
Looks to the right.
Umm. Well when was anyone going to let us know that was how we feel? I am not mad, just surprised (snark snark).
Indeed, this “poll” is popping up so often that I even saw a comment here in DK refer to it this morning. When I saw another comment say “57% of Americans want Donald Trump out of the race, but no one is talking about it,” I went and googled exactly that question.
What result did I get? Article after article about this magical “poll” saying two-thirds (66%) of Democrats want Biden to drop out of the race. Now, this was deeply concerning to me. How could such a secret be kept from us!? So, I went to the Axios article to see what all the fuss was about.
I went straight to the poll Axios cited from AP-Norc: apnorc.org/…
The first thing I clicked on in this cite was the page called “Methodology.” Tell me how the sausage is made, before I eat it, AP-Norc! I invite you to read the Methodology PDF. It is a fascinating read. Here are some highlights of AP-Norc’s fool-proof polling methodology:
1) “1,253 completed the survey.”
2) “the final stage completion rate is 15.8%”
3) “the weighted household panel response rate is 22.3%”
4) “In total, 69 interviews were removed for nonresponse to at least 50% of the questions asked of them, for completing the survey in less than one-third the median interview time for the full sample, or for straight-lining all grid questions asked of them.”
That last one is my favorite. They removed interviews if people failed to answer more than half of the questions. Umm. Why is half the bar? How many people, in total, actually finished the entire survey?? Is that the 15.8% number??? Did less than 16% of the people you interviewed complete the survey??????
So many questions.
Regardless, I feel like all of us Democrats could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble had we just been honest with each other. Two-thirds is an awfully large number of people to stay quiet. Surely, you would think we would make ourselves be heard. It is not healthy to hold such feelings in… (snark snark snark — trying to control chuckling).
OH WAIT.
*** Reads methodology again ***
They did not say they were only recording Democrats? They didn’t say what the political affiliation of any of their interviewees were? They didn’t say how they determined which interviewee was what political affiliation, or how many? No— There must be some mistake (snark snark). Surely the media would not be just trying to sell me a narrative with a defunct poll right (snark snark)???
81,000,000 Americans voted for Joe Biden to be the President. The highest popular vote in US History.
14.5 million Democrats voted in Democratic primaries to choose Joe Biden as the DNC Presidential Candidate this year (www.cnn.com/...).
Yet, two-thirds of us, as of July 11-15th, want Joe Biden to step aside and drop out? Keep dreaming.
As I said in this piece www.dailykos.com/…, the attempts to gaslight Democrats are insulting, offensive, and fundamentally undemocratic.
This is why, when experts are asked, what they overwhelmingly state is to the effect of: “Do not listen to the polls.” Because many of them are junk unworthy of the time it takes to decipher their cryptic numbers.
2/3 of Democrats want Joe Biden to step aside. Give me a break.