June 28 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. voters who were unable to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump before Thursday’s presidential debate delivered their verdicts after the contest and it was almost universally bad news for Biden.

Of the 13 “undecideds” who spoke to Reuters, 10 described the 81-year-old Democratic president’s performance against Republican candidate Trump collectively as feeble, befuddled, embarrassing and difficult to watch.

  • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    2524·
    6 months ago

    Hey, just curious: who is down-voting this Reuters article and why? Come now, don’t be shy!

    I encourage people not to bury their heads in sand to ignore hard truths.

        • NoSuchAgency@lemdro.idEnglish
          428·
          6 months ago

          Yep, if it doesn’t go with lefts narrative, they just downvote it. Facts, or nothing else matters. What you just posted proves it. I’ve also noticed that a lot of the comments from the left are very childish, and always made me think that a lot of them are either just the young keyboard warrior type that doesn’t have a job, or that their just bots or something. It seems like they have a lot of supporters online, but when’s the last time you’ve seen someone with a Biden bumper sticker, Tshirt, flag, sign in their yard, etc.? I know I never see them

      • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        923·
        6 months ago

        This is a focus-group of undecided voters – a small population set to begin with and a sample set designed to be small, but who will clearly decide this election on the margins. You do understand how focus groups work and quite literally all campaigns use these, correct?

        And finally, little data is better than no data. Nobody came away from the debate thinking Biden won; so it’s not particularly a stretch to see this would hurt him with critical battleground state undecided voters.

        Edit: Whew, talk about vote manipulation. I’m astounded by the complete and utter lack of substantive rebuttal.

        • meco03211@lemmy.world
          131·
          6 months ago

          13 “undecideds” is a poor sampling. Given one of the “undecideds” was basically between Biden or third party, they didn’t control for any “never-Bideners” or “never-Trumpers”.

          Add on this level of ignorance:

          Hands down I would vote for a liar and a convict over a person who doesn’t seem to be all there mentally.

          You’re basically scraping the bottom of the barrel to force a clickbait headline and choosing the most bombastic quote from them to include.

          You’re getting downvotes because it’s pretty much never the case of someone honestly and in good faith posting seemingly pro-Trump rhetoric. It always starts out nice, but devolves into the quote above like “I like the convicted felon”.

        • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
          101·
          6 months ago

          You don’t publish initial results without a significant population sample. 13 people is an abysmal sample size. You need around 10% of a population polled up until about 1,000 people because of the way the curve levels out. 100 people minimum to get something remotely confident. The confidence level of this poll is so low that the publishing of it is irresponsible and unethical.

          To your argument about the other poll having only 8, that’s also irresponsible. Both articles are clearly jumping to conclusions in an effort to grab views. However, that it received a more positive response is clearly indicative of the way the lemmy population leans. That’s really about all you can grab from that… Well, that and people have no idea how statistical averaging works.

          • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            55·
            6 months ago

            Again, you don’t seem to understand the intent of focus groups or why they’re used by political campaigns. In a way focus groups are more akin to Case Studies, which are still extremely insightful.

            Besides, we already have a broader set of polling data of battleground states, and what we see here is a reflection of those wider, scientific polls that didn’t bode well for Joe Biden even pre-Debate.

            The mere fact that ANY random sample of undecided voters came away with these views, is downright dangerous.

            • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
              43·
              6 months ago

              Oh no, I very much do. I have a degree in psychology that requires being able to do statistical analysis for research.

              You use a focus group to elicit qualitative, not quantitative, info from a targeted group in a study, not as the study itself. The issue is, it’s not meant for broad populations or for quantitative studies. Even then, the data is easily skewed by biases from the group themselves, the moderator, and the interpreter and shouldn’t be the only thing used.

              Focus groups are meant for things like quality indicators, where you use a range of them in general analysis, which can help to triangulate where an issue is.

              To properly employ a focus group, you would first need to poll an appropriate sample size of undecided voters then you target demographics within the sample to gain insight into why they answered their poll as they did.

              • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                45·
                6 months ago

                And how, qualitatively, did these focus groups triangulate where undecided voters are on the issue of who to vote for?

                To properly employ a focus group, you would first need to poll an appropriate sample size of undecided voters then you target demographics within the sample to gain insight into why they answered their poll as they did.

                Isn’t it quite probable they did exactly this? They certainly didn’t just pull these people off the streets. They had to aggregate undecided voters to begin with, after all.

                I think it’s reaching for straws to suggest this isn’t saying what we already recognize from polling conducted in battleground states.

                Edit:

                About 20% of voters say they have not picked a candidate in this year’s presidential race, are leaning toward third-party options or might not vote at all, according to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

                Reuters interviewed 15 such voters ahead of Thursday’s debate, and they agreed to be interviewed again after the event about whether the debate changed their views.

                • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
                  32·
                  6 months ago

                  Then they need to state it, because the only data they’ve given is that they asked a group of 13 people, one group, which is still not an adequate sample. Period.

                  That, right there, is why focus groups shouldn’t be used for this to generalize a larger population, because the data is being misinterpreted to sell a biased story! Probability would be estimated if they actually conducted a full study. Which they clearly didn’t.

                  And you can’t use previously gathered data from battleground states to estimate results after an event. They’re snapshots of an opinion at that given time. You can’t use them for an event that occurred after the fact. Again, that’s unethical and inappropriate.

                  • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                    45·
                    6 months ago

                    About 20% of voters say they have not picked a candidate in this year’s presidential race, are leaning toward third-party options or might not vote at all, according to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

                    Reuters interviewed 15 such voters ahead of Thursday’s debate, and they agreed to be interviewed again after the event about whether the debate changed their views.

                    The data wasn’t good before, and it doesn’t take a statistician to know they’re going to be as-bad or worse than before post-debate. I’ll happily take that bet with you and circle back in the coming weeks as state-wide polling proves this.

        • Marleyinoc@lemmy.world
          84·
          6 months ago

          You want the reason we’re down voting you and the post? Because anyone undecided is a fucking moron so we don’t give a shit what they think. Same with those voting for Trump.

          • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            86·
            6 months ago

            That’s a terrible take. You know why that is?

            Because undecided swing-voters in battle-ground states will decide this election on the margins. It’s Not you. It’s not me. It’s those stupid undecided voters that we unfortunately need to cater to, and Joe Biden lost some of those voters in the debate. If the electorate were informed and intelligent, we wouldn’t have either of these candidates in the first place.

            Reminder that 2020 was decided by something like 40,000 votes thanks to the electoral college.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            6 months ago

            Damn, I’m just imagining your face if Trump wins the election if those people you’re trying to remain ignorant of tip the election.

            Ignorance is never a virtue.

        • lets_get_off_lemmy@reddthat.com
          4·
          6 months ago

          Focus groups aren’t meant to be used for gaining an understanding of a broad swath of the population. Focus groups are used for exploratory research, concept testing, and understanding the “why” behind opinions and behaviors.

          If you want to generalize trends towards large populations, you’re going to need a large sample size. It’s statistics that suggests that many respondents will leave you with extremely low confidence in the outcome.

          For example, if you are trying to judge the voting preferences of a population of 100,000 people, you’ll need 383 randomly sampled people in a survey to reach a 95% confidence interval. 13 is nowhere near the amount of people required to cover those that considered themselves “independents” before the debate.

          That’s not to say this tells us nothing, but it’s by no means a predictive study.

          *edit: I actually would say it’s harmful because I think that it portrays the narrative as if it is predictive, when it’s not.

          • lennybird@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            25·
            6 months ago

            Given how pivotal this moment is, I think it kind of is. Considering only 40,000 votes decided 2020, a handful of undecided voters is extremely vital. What other format would you have it in?

    • TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world
      7·
      6 months ago

      One of us… One of us… One of us…

      Lemmy is just as bad as reddit but with fewer people. Downvotes aren’t tied with the source but just the content.

      “Space garbage kills puppy” post will be downvoted to oblivion and “Reddit CFO becomes homeless says BuzzFeed paparazzi” will get 1000 up votes.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
        71·
        6 months ago

        “Supporter” is a strong word. I prefer “person who realizes biden is the only option to slow America’s descent into a fascist theocracy.”

        We just lost chevron so it might be too late anyway.

    • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.comEnglish
      1018·
      6 months ago

      Lemmy/Reddit is full of Dems and any article that goes against the narrative of the day gets downvoted and it’s the same with comments. It’s not how it’s supposed to work but it does