Stop freaking out about polling ups and downs. No one really changes their mind anymore

With people hyperventilating over minute shifts in the polls, let’s remember a little-known factoid: public opinion doesn’t shift. People are locked in. Remember the dramatic shift in public opinion over gay marriage? That was about a 12-point shift over 10 freaking years. That’s considered a dramatic upending of public opinion—about a one-point shift per year!

Today, there isn’t a single Donald Trump supporter who might be persuaded to vote for Hillary Clinton, and not a single Clinton supporter who might vote for Trump. So all that jumping up and down in the polls? Noise. Take a look at this, from 2012:

Ostensibly, the graph shows how much better Barack Obama’s polling was than Gallup, which isn’t too hard to prove given that Gallup had Mitt Romney winning in the end. But I’m actually interested in something else—how little that needle moved in Obama’s polling. From June to the end, Obama’s numbers shifted from 51 to 53 percent, and ended up back where he started, at around 52 percent. In other words, +/- one point.  The convention? +2 boost. “47 percent” scandal? Another +1. After the first debate, it was back down two. That’s it.