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Indeed, but to be frank, I take political polls with a grain of salt these days. They rarely reflect the actual result of the elections.
In my experience over the last few election cycles the polls tend to understate the support of the right wing candidate
Almost all the polls showed Hillary winning in 2016
Almost all the polls showed Trump losing in a landslide in 2020, yes the dems got the whitehouse, the senate and the house but the majorities were much thinner than expected.
Exactly my experience. The poll would indicate a vast advantage of one candidate over the other, then the election shows results that are very, very close calls.
The polls are actually pretty good. There are two problems:
And unfortunately, people like clean story-lines and news organizations are more than happy to supply them. Journalists looked at the polls in 2016 and confidently proclaimed that Clinton was leading. The reality was that she had a slight lead and Trump winning was well within the normal margin of error. This turned into a rather famous spat on twitter.
Sadly, we've been stuck in that situation ever since. In 2020, Biden was a slight favorite, but Trump winning was within the margin of error. Right now, polls show a dead heat and either candidate winning would not be a surprise, if the election were held today. One upshot in this, is that pools this early are not very predictive of the final outcome. They shouldn't be ignored, but that also shouldn't be taken as gospel.
So ya, the polls are fine and do a good job of reflecting the actual results of the elections. The problem is idiots that only look at the top-line outcome and don't look at the actual numbers and see that they are actually saying "it's close and could go either way."
It's not like I disagree with you, but we're looking at the same thing with different lens. You're saying things like "science is accurate" which I can agree with. But then you see headlines like "science says vaccines cause autism," and that's what I'm talking about.
So, in your own words:
We're not disagreeing.
If I see a report that says "polls show that Biden/Trump/Clinton is winning," I'll think "I'll believe it on election day."
Really, like which ones?
Just do a google search with these terms: polls show clinton trump biden
You will see polls largely favoring Hillary, or largely favoring Biden, or saying that Trump is winning. Then in the end the elections are pretty much 50/50.
As far as I can tell, reputable sources placed Clinton in the lead for 2016 with some margin of error to account for the electoral college. She did win the popular vote, so the polls I've seen were correct. Similar for Biden, but he had a larger lead in states that Clinton previously didn't.
Sorry, I'm on my phone or I'd put more work in here, but you're the one with the concern anyway so I'd think it would be better if you took the time to demonstrate your claim more thoroughly.