‘They Became Blinded by Ideology’: Richard Baris Talks Midterm Predictions and the Weaponization of Polling
American Thought Leaders
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2022
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“The overwhelming sentiment is a sentiment that things cost too much, things are out of control, and that we need to make a change,” says Big Data Poll director Richard Baris, a data journalist and host of the “Inside the Numbers” podcast. Going into the midterm elections, “half of the electorate or more is citing economic issues” as their top concern, Baris says.
Baris tells us what he sees on the ground in key battleground states and why a lot of polling these days is simply inaccurate.
“So many [pollsters] no longer even understand the people that they’re trying to learn about. … And polling is essentially attempting to predict human behavior. It’s very much almost a behavioral social science. How could you do that if you don’t know that much about the subject, right? And maybe even dislike them?” Baris says.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Half of the electorate or more is citing economic issues. |
| 0:03.8 | The overwhelming sentiment is a sentiment that things cost too much, |
| 0:07.6 | things are out of control, and that we need to make a change. |
| 0:10.5 | Today, sit down with big data poll director Richard Baris, |
| 0:14.0 | a data journalist and host of the Inside the Numbers podcast. |
| 0:18.1 | As we head into the 2022 midterm elections, |
| 0:21.3 | Baris tells us what he sees on the ground in key battleground states |
| 0:25.4 | and why a lot of polling these days is simply inaccurate. |
| 0:28.4 | So many of them no longer even understand the people that they're trying to gauge, |
| 0:34.9 | and polling is essential to attempting to predict human behavior. |
| 0:38.4 | How could you do that if you don't know that much about the subject |
| 0:42.1 | and maybe even dislike them? |
| 0:44.6 | This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Janie Kelly. |
| 0:49.6 | Richard Baris, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. |
| 0:54.1 | It's great to be here, Jan. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. |
| 0:57.9 | Well, I'm going to do something today with you that I almost never do, |
| 1:02.7 | which is talk about polling. I'm one of these people |
| 1:06.1 | that really does not trust the polls, and I almost see them as a way |
| 1:12.3 | to manipulate public opinion, and I'm definitely going to ask you about that. |
| 1:16.4 | But all that said, there's all this talk as we speak right now |
| 1:20.9 | about this big shift in suburban women, and so what is the real significance of this, |
| 1:26.8 | and is it something that we can actually seriously count on? |
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