The outcome Tuesday night — Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory of 59,916,932 to Donald Trump’s 59,690,096 (so far), coupled with her sizable Electoral College defeat — demonstrated not only how hard it was for her to try to steer an unwieldy Democratic coalition to the White House but also the […] Read more »
A Divided and Pessimistic Electorate
Beyond their disagreements over specific policy issues, voters who supported President-elect Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also differed over the seriousness of a wide array of problems facing the nation, from immigration and crime to inequality and racism. And while voters generally said little progress has been made over the […] Read more »
The 13 most amazing findings in the 2016 exit poll
It’s been 36 hours (or so) since we were all witnesses to the biggest political upset in presidential history. As President-elect Donald Trump and President Obama huddle in Washington on Thursday, and as the gears of the incoming government begin to grind in earnest, I’m still totally captivated by the […] Read more »
How much did polls miss the mark on Trump — and why?
Trump’s poll and forecast-defying victory Tuesday immediately raised criticisms of a crisis in public opinion polling, with CNN anchor Jake Tapper saying the result would put the polling and voter projection industry “out of business.” … An analysis of 145 polls nationally and in 16 states completed within one week […] Read more »
Trump’s Data Team Saw a Different America—and They Were Right
Nobody saw it coming. Not the media. Certainly not Hillary Clinton. Not even Donald Trump’s team of data scientists, holed up in their San Antonio headquarters 1,800 miles from Trump Tower, were predicting this outcome. But the scientists picked up disturbances—like falling pressure before a hurricane—that others weren’t seeing. It […] Read more »
The Data Said Clinton Would Win. Why You Shouldn’t Have Believed It.
It was a rough night for number crunchers. And for the faith that people in every field — business, politics, sports and academia — have increasingly placed in the power of data. Donald J. Trump’s victory ran counter to almost every major forecast — undercutting the belief that analyzing reams […] Read more »