Why does the media emphasize polls in elections when its Electoral Votes that determine the US President?

[AviatorTom]

Leading up to the 2024 Presidential election, several groups publish weekly, and sometimes daily polls, showing the forecast popular vote for each candidate.

Why do they do that? The US President is chosen by Electoral Votes, specifically the candidate who gets to the magic number of 270 electoral votes, with the election usually decide by a handful of states, mostly in the Midwest, sometimes called the Rust Belt.

It's interesting that many Americans believe the popular vote is, or should be, what determines the winner. But that's not the way the US Constitution was written. The Electoral College was created to ensure that small states, as well as large states, have a voice in who is elected President. Some may argue that no longer works, but that is the system that has been in place for almost 250 years.

Here is a map showing one forecast of how each state is expected to vote, as of 7 August 2024. Based on this map, neither candidate has a solid 270 electoral votes; if one candidate can swing one of the other candidate's "leaning" states, they will win the election.

What do you think?

Should the "popularity polls" be abandoned and instead show expected electoral votes?

[CrazyGirl2]

I don’t look at polls anymore, after I learned the psychology behind “push-polls”, and how they can manipulate them to indicate whatever they want the poll results to say! The most reliable sources of predictive data are the political betting sites. Where people are willing to gamble their own money on who will win. Apparently, from what I’ve read, in 2016 while the NYT was giving Clinton a 99% chance of winning on election day, the betting sites had Trump winning!

As for why the media emphasizes polls and elections when it's electoral votes that determine the US president… The electoral college goes state by state, but also the polls tend to go state by state. Thus giving people as "supposedly accurate" picture of which way the electoral college will likely go. (Of course this doesn't take into account the possibility that there could be “faithless electors" in the electoral college.

Hope this helps,
Laura 🤗 🥰

[CrazyGirl2]

Thanks for the MHO Tom.

[Kelley1]

Most polls will show the results for each state plus the total results. If the polls are accurate, you can use the results in each state to calculate the electoral votes. Therefore, the media does show the electoral votes

Nevertheless, it is easier for the media to show the totals so the media emphasizes the popular counts because the public will not read or watch the lengthy explanations that would be required to calculate the electoral votes.

[Kelley1]

Thank you for the MHO.

[monorprise]

The polls are rather difficult to believe as it means either 10s of millions of people who previously didn't like Kamala are lying or a few posters are lying.

The Rasmussen technique in polling tends to be the most reliable in elections and still shows trump with a 5 point lead in popular vote, suggesting its the posters who are lying:

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/#google_vignette

That said we are a Federal Constitutional republic and popular votes don't matter at all because different states have different election systems producing significantly different results of rather debatable quality among other states.

Only the electoral cottage matter thus protecting state's electoral sytem from each-other.

[MisterWack]

One: Media wants viewer’s retention and they know every election gets eyeballs glued on TV screens especially when it is Trump (think of it like the weather channel how views peak during hurricane/tornado season).

Two: Yes, polls determine individual voters when the electoral college is the one to actually count…. Though popular vote of the state = total electoral college votes for the state being handed to one of the two major party nominees.

Three: Gives an idea of where American mindsets are at.

I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz this November. I used to support Trump in 2016 and I have a history of voting for President Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020.

[OlderAndWiser]

Polls are easily manipulated and used by the MSM to try to affect voting.

[AimeeKyle]

It’s now used in an attempt to sway your vote…. to one side or the other. There are some outlets that show both…but not usually on a daily basis.

As for the Electoral College / votes……this is a key element of our republic. It keeps things relatively even (whether you live in a large or small state whether they are heavily populated or not). It gives each state a relatively equal voice. It also forces candidates to campaign everywhere.

Switching to a popular vote would be detrimental to our Republic. Presidents would be chosen by the largest cities: New York City, Chicago, Houston and LA.

[Anonymous]

There have only been 5 elections where the winner of the popular vote has not won the electoral vote, but 2 of them (40%) have been in the past 25 years, out of 235 years of elections, and when you see names like Gore and Clinton and Obama and Biden involved, you know there's funny business going on.

That's why we have an electoral system, so they can't rig the vote, but In 2020 they figured out a way to get away with it and, with the help of the fully partisan news media, were able to dupe most people in the country, and even managed to get people enraged when anyone exercised their right to question the election results.

80 million votes for Biden? The most of any U. S. president? More votes than Obama got? When he was completely senile? Give me a break.

[strateguy632]

To sway the public.

Especially to reinforce the cult that trump never won! That is why.

In your picture kinda wrong for six states with 50 million total, to decide for all 50 states against 40 states!

[AviatorTom]

@strateguy632 The map is just one group's forecast. There are many maps like this one, with several states in different camps.

[llorando]

So they can rig and manipulate them to persuade voters into believing a candidate has more or less support then they actually to. Manipulating polls to make it look like a candidate has less support then they actually do, it will cause voters to give second thought about voting for them. Just participated in a political poll recently, that had a list of candidates I had to choose from, and not surprisingly, Kennedy wasn't on the list but Stein and West was.

[Drewtate]

It's propaganda 101. They basically try to tell you who you are voting for. Often they will invent fake polls, the thing about polls, surveys and studies is that the result can be influenced by specific questions asked and not asked.

[sage2021]

I will never forget the look on the candidate Trump when he learned that it is the electoral college votes that determines who wins the election.
He did not know that and was really shocked to learn that.
I remember him saying then what is all of the campaigning for? He was baffled as to why the people's votes don't determine the winner of the president.

It is rather strange when you think about it 🤷🏼‍♀️

[AviatorTom]

@sage2021 This is the first time I've heard about this. Do you have a source that I could educate myself about this?

[sage2021]

Well, no I don't. I just remember him sitting in some chairs with a couple of men talking about it.
Maybe they were men from the electoral college explaining the process to him.
I also remember it was getting pretty close to the election
I believe Trump was totally blindsided by it. At least that's how he acted.
I can still picture it in my mind. Trump was sitting on the far left and the other two men were next to him in kind of a partial circle but not quite a circle. Just so they could see each other.

I don't know where it was. It was kind of an intimate setting,

That's all I can remember.

[NaultD]

Electoral college was a compromise to avoid the civil war. The south was that God damn hot humidity you could name and remember every named voter. Land owner , white male over 18 able to read.

Then the civil war started anyways. It's an ass backwards system for ass backwards people.

[AviatorTom]

@naultd What history book did you read? The Electoral College is all about ensuring that the federal government isn't controlled by large states only. There are large and small states in both the North and South. The American Civil War happened 85 years after the Constitution defined the Electoral College.

[NaultD]

The 12th amendment was the first named "electoral college" use of the word in 1804. 1861 was the civil and
Adams predicted that if the South formed a new nation, it would be torn apart by an extremely violent slave insurrection. If the two nations went to war, Adams predicted the president of the United States would use his war powers to abolish slavery.

[FreyaRed]

Because every election is for mainstream media dinner time. Huge amount of political campaign funds before election is swallowed by media. Popularity polls is money

[exitseven]

polls are just snapshots in time. They change every day. The only poll that really matters is the one on election day but it is better to be ahead in the polls than to be behind.

[Guacamole409]

I hate to say it, but I think Hillary was right. We probably should go to a popular vote. There’s just too much corruption happening. I got zero votes and somehow won.

[Dargil]

They want headlines. Although contested states matter.

[DrPepper12]

Clicks, eyeballs and money frame the narrative. When the story of this sad era is told, media failure is going to be among the top five reasons as to how we got here with Trump.

[jshm2]

Because they want to give you the false impression that your vote matters.

[normalice]

Sensationalism. And they want to know they are doing a good job of keeping a race equal enough to be interesting, even when one side has openly declared aspirations for a dictatorship.

[chrissykerdock]

it's the best they can do

[BarryLiverstone]

More attention to sell ads