This Is Why You Don’t Trust the Polls

Reality does not pass the smell test.

Tonight: Come hang with Will Saletan, Chris Cillizza, and me to talk about [gestures broadly] all of this. 8pm in the East.

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(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

1. The Polls

You guys did not like yesterday’s newsletter. One of the recurring responses was, “JVL, stop being a doomer! You can’t trust polls anymore!”

Today I want to explain why (1) You can trust the polls, but also (2) Why we think we can’t trust them.

TL;DR: We recoil from polls because they often depict a reality that should not be possible. Which creates an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

Let’s start with the polling on this week’s elections.

In Ohio the polling projected that Issue 1 (abortion) and Issue 2 (marijuana) were both showing 58 percent support. How did reality match up with the polling?