Five years ago I debunked a drippy poll denial video by the supposedly left wing West Media. Now here from Topher Field (not that he deserves that link) is the nearest right-wing equivalent to West's cavalcade of cluelessness. In a video entitled "Preference Discipline is EVERYTHING" but advertised with images that say "THE POLLS ARE WRONG [AND WHY YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT]" Field, a glibertarian, sets out to show that polls that estimate One Nation vs Labor "2PPs" are underestimating One Nation. The funny thing is that there are quite strong arguments that that is true. He doesn't make them. Within the first ninety seconds, Field has already showed he is totally out of his depth.
Field Doesn't Know How Polls Work
While talking in front of tweeted results of recent Redbridge and Morgan polls, Field says that these pollsters - and not just these pollsters but all the national and state polls - are using out of date data or guesses to calculate preference flows. But in the case of One Nation vs Labor, neither of these pollsters does this. Both calculate their preference flows simply by asking respondents which party they would preference higher. This is hardly obscure information either - Morgan prominently states it uses this method in all its weekly polling reports, and reports on Accent Research's website make it very clear for Redbridge/Accent (see p. 3 on this one, where both methods have results shown for Coalition vs Labor but only respondent for One Nation vs Labor). The funny thing is that very briefly some pollsters were attempting to use 2025 House of Reps preference flows but were dissuaded from doing so after I and others pointed out that this would make the flows to One Nation too high.
