alt Hacker NewsThey do a variety of things based on professionalism, budget, ability to gauge that.
My point is --> this problem is the most basic and fundamental problem that is the focus of every pollsters existence <--
Asking questions is extremely easy.
Getting a 'truly random sample' is extremely hard.
Trying to factor in those things is 100% of the work, that's what they do, it's their job.
Some are better, some are lazier, some have better data, some are individuals, some are teams so it varies hugely.
When the conditions are controlled they'll have a better idea than otherwise.
Their job is not 'asking questions' it's 'figuring out how to get random samples'.
This is appealing to authority, assuming the work ought to be perfect just because people are professionals. What if there is no good way to control for these latent factors? What if the latent factors change by the year and their magnitude of effect on the overall result changes? All this happens. No matter what you model with statistics, you are only ever presenting your model and its assumptions based on the data that were used with it. You can never say "now I understand reality" if you actually believe in statistics as they are and not just the popular religion of 'statistics'.