A long-time hobbyhorse of mine is that ISSUE POLLING, as opposed to ELECTION POLLING, is next to worthless. (Of course, recent events call election polling into question, too.) The problem with issue polling is that it's totally unclear what it tells you.
https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1329249017570660354
It's really easy to know what an election poll tells you:
"In a few weeks [or whenever] you will go into a voting booth, and have to pick between these options. Which will you pick?"
You can perfectly replicate the decision in front of voters.
"In a few weeks [or whenever] you will go into a voting booth, and have to pick between these options. Which will you pick?"
You can perfectly replicate the decision in front of voters.
Of course there are other pitfalls - you don't know who will vote, you don't know if people will change their minds, etc. - but ultimately you can at least offer poll respondents the exact choice they'll have to make on a ballot.
But an issue poll doesn't work like that.
But an issue poll doesn't work like that.
An issue polls says "How do you feel about X?"
The problem is, we don't know, and voters don't know, and we can't predict, and voters can't predict, how their feelings about X will change who they vote for, or how they behave politically.
The problem is, we don't know, and voters don't know, and we can't predict, and voters can't predict, how their feelings about X will change who they vote for, or how they behave politically.
Worse than that, we can't provide voters with all of the information and context they'd have in the real world. People's views about something can change dramatically when it's repeated to them or convey to them by sources they trust (or distrust).
For example, I'd bet a lot of money if you polled Republicans in 2014 and asked if they'd vote for a reality TV host for president, a huge majority would say no. And then, two years later, the vast majority of those Republicans did exactly that.
Or to use a more recent and salient example, up until the moment Nancy Pelosi announced that Democrats would be impeaching Trump, a significant minority of Democrats opposed impeaching Trump. The moment she endorsed the idea, though, their views flopped over to support.
Because of this, trying to make political decisions with issue polls just doesn't work. The tool isn't up to the task. There's just no substitute for the common-sense intuition of a smart politician that this topic, or that one, might seize the hearts and minds of the electorate.
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