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Kyle Reed 🟥

@kylereed.bsky.social

Assistant Professor of IR, University of Amsterdam | Politics of IL, choreographies of IOs | he/him 🏳‍🌈 | Detroit Lions Football

1891 Posts2389 Follower3839 Folgt
Quinn Yeargain@yeargain.bsky.social · 2w ago

Six years ago, I argued that publishing a fake poll with the intent to affect a betting market was a crime, and should be prosecuted—in part because of the very real effect on elections. scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcont...

For example, public opinion polls affect turnout in elections.331 Polls can affect turnout positively or negatively, depending on the perceived closeness of the election.332 When polling predicts a close election, voter turnout experiences a noticeable “boost”; 333 but when the opposite is true, and a “landslide victory is expected,” polls projecting the landslide actually decrease turnout.334 Unsurprisingly, given the extent to which public opinion polls drive media coverage, they can also affect the viability of campaigns. The media’s coverage of polls does more than just help gin up expectations of a close race – it also draws attention to individual candidates with a frequency that largely corresponds to those candidates’ standings in the polls themselves.335 Those poll results, the media attention, or both also contribute to candidate fundraising; candidates that do better in polls tend to raise more money.336 Further, polls are used by national parties and the Commission on Presidential Debates as proxies for viability – which then determines a candidate’s ability to participate in a sponsored debate.337 Excluded candidates have understandably filed suit against the Commission for its use of polling in its requirements.338 Third-party presidential candidates routinely allege that the failure to include them in presidential debates “cause[s] them to lose access to television audiences and resulting campaign contributions worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” which is likely an accurate statement of the effects of debate exclusion – though not an injury redressable by courts.339
Mallory McMorrow@mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social · 2w ago

As one of the candidates featured in these polls - the infamous one in late June that showed me plummeting into single digits (which was at odds with our internals) - here's the impact of this "experiment"