Why is it an Atlas tradition to try to "unskew" every poll that has a Republican doing relatively well, but to mock anyone who questions a poll that has Democrats doing relatively well? Of course there will always be outliers on both sides, but sometimes outliers can be the truth, especially in this day of "herding".
As one of the most-likely accused...
1. Some pollsters are really awful. (These folks had Obama winning Missouri in 2012... ha, ha, ha!) Is it any surprise that I distrust outliers?
When one starts seeing the same outliers, then maybe something has changed.
2. I am as likely to go along with the common wisdom. In 2008 I could hardly believe that Barack Obama had a chance to win Virginia, a state that had gone for every Republican nominee had won after 1948 except for the LBJ landslide. The only former Confederate state that went for Ford in 1976 and a state that was going to go for Bill Clinton (apparently a good match for Clinton in culture) in 1992 or 1996, it was definitely not going to go to the most blatant d@mnyankee Democrat since George McGovern in a close election.
I changed my tune on Virginia once just about every poll showed Obama leading in Virginia.
Heck, as the 1992 election came nigh, I was extremely certain that George Herbert Walker Bush would be re-elected because Bill Clinton wasn't going to win Texas, a state that Democrats had not lost in a winning election -- ever. In 2000 I expected Al Gore to win West Virginia because West Virginia was historically the sort of state that Democrats win in elections other than 45-state blowouts for Republicans.
States trend. So if a poll of Minnesota shows Donald Trump winning Minnesota by 5% my first impression may be "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot". But let me see other polls showing much the same, and I might recognize either a collapse of Hillary Clinton or a Republican trend in Minnesota.
3. In the case of the infamous poll of Kansas showing a lead for Hillary Clinton, even I said that I didn't really believe it, but nothing but common sense says that this result is absurd.I dumped it as soon as a poll that made sense appeared.
Don't like a poll? Then wait for the next one.
4. Most of us can rationalize anything.
