LAST weekend I ate a cricket on national television. Based on my statistical analysis of presidential polls, I made a bet that if Donald J. Trump won more than 240 Electoral College votes, I would chow down. Like millions of voters in both parties, I was surprised by the outcome. […] Read more »
Secular voters didn’t turn out for Clinton the way white evangelicals did for Trump
One question in the tumultuous 2016 presidential campaign was whether white evangelicals would “come home” to the GOP and vote for Donald Trump, given his history of divorce, crude language and lack of familiarity with the Bible. We now know from exit polls that they did — in droves. … […] Read more »
Trump Probably Did Better With Latino Voters Than Romney Did
In the lead-up to the election, there was a lot of talk about how Latinos would turn out in record numbers to stop Donald Trump. But not only did Trump end up winning, exit polls also indicated that he won 29 percent of the Latino vote — better than Mitt […] Read more »
Polls may be making voters worse at predicting elections
Blaming the polls for getting the 2016 election so wrong is understandable, but there was arguably a bigger problem: the false confidence that the polls inspired. Indeed, the flood of polls may be having a perverse consequence: making voters worse at predicting the election, not better. And the media landscape […] Read more »
What will pollsters do after 2016?
Jason Husser, Elon University Clinton defeated Trump much like Dewey defeated Truman. Both election results were dramatic surprises because pre-election polls created expectations that didn’t match the final outcomes. Many polls were very accurate. For example, the polling averages in Virginia, Colorado and Arizona were within 0.1 percent of the […] Read more »
Automated Pro-Trump Bots Overwhelmed Pro-Clinton Messages, Researchers Say
An automated army of pro-Donald J. Trump chatbots overwhelmed similar programs supporting Hillary Clinton five to one in the days leading up to the presidential election, according to a report published Thursday by researchers at Oxford University. CONT. John Markoff, New York Times Read more »