• OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I know you’re not necessarily making this argument but you mention that the most important issue for voters includes…

    and “The Middle East/Israel/Palestinians” (2%).

    In Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin the margin in 2020 was less than 2%. Michigan and Nevada were under 3%.

    It’s a small number, yes, but this argument that it “won’t matter because people vote on domestic issues” ignores these thin margins, imo. It really might matter more than people think.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      6 months ago

      I didn’t go into it at any length but I think the number of people who, in the actual election, will have the Gaza war impact the way they vote is way higher than 2%. About 13% of Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary, which presumably they wouldn’t have done because of crime, immigration, or whatever other “non-most-important” issues according to this poll.

      I think hanging out on Lemmy can give you the impression that more people overall care about Palestine than the number that actually do. But the number definitely isn’t 2%. I’m not at all saying that the real number is 2% and so it doesn’t matter; I’m saying the number is definitely higher than 2% and so this poll is random-phone-number-calling-barking-questions-at-people uninformative garbage.

      • OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Gotcha! Definitely agree about Lemmy being an echo chamber for this type of stuff but I also doubt it’s only 2%. Michigan is a good example, even if it was 2% it doesn’t mean it’s equally spread across states.

        Also it would be a bit of a mistake to assume only the “most important” issue would impact voting choice, or more importantly, the choice to not vote

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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          6 months ago

          Yeah. That whole massive list of “most important” issues which were apparently listed out verbally to people, over the phone, by a bored call center employee, and the list’s suspicious inclusion of multiple versions of “economic issues” with suspicious particular trigger words right at the beginning (where, purely by coincidence I’m sure, a lot of people decided their most important issues were), all form part of an overall picture of big parts of this poll not really meaning anything, let alone the foofaraw that the New York Times seems to want to make it into down to the resolution of individual percentage points.