Polling Expert Richard Baris Explains Why Polling Companies Are Intentionally Inaccurate

Baris explained in his speech that the money inside the polling industry favours polling companies that put out new poll after new poll. Volume is favoured over quality, even though many of these companies were off by double-digits in multiple states over the past few elections.

On top of that, because mainstream pollsters are given massive budgets to simply jam out content for the media companies they work for, while their deep inaccuracies go unpunished, Baris believes they are incentivized to craft polls to try and influence voters, and donors, and not just gauge public opinion.

The logic goes: If your accuracy does not affect your budget, and having a flawed methodology may help your preferred candidate generate donations, and get out the vote, then why not scuff a few polls? 

Baris is convinced that results in several states during the 2020 presidential election were significantly affected by the massive polling inaccuracy from the mainstream polling companies, and yet nobody seems to be reforming the way they conduct polls.

He argued, using Wisconsin as an example if Biden is shown to be up by double-digits over Trump in the 2020 race, donations are naturally going to decrease for Trump’s campaign and voters may choose to not show up to the polls if they think their candidate has no chance.