When Barack Obama won his second presidential term eight years ago, the exit polls clearly showed that he benefitted from what I called the “new American mainstream”—the growing voter blocs of youth, people of color, and the college-educated. That calculus changed in 2016, when Donald Trump shocked the political world […] Read more »
Polls underestimated Trump’s support, but not by as much as you might think
As returns from quick-counting states like Florida and Texas flowed in Tuesday night, pollsters quickly became targets in America’s easily triggered political culture. With Democratic challenger Joe Biden running well behind poll-created expectations in those states, accusations of “collapse” and “disaster” peppered the nation’s pollsters. President Trump added to the […] Read more »
‘Guesses upon guesses’: Polls fall short again in 2020, raising red flags for future contests
… The underestimation of Trump’s turnout and support in many places, after similar issues in 2016, has raised again questions about the reliance of campaigns, the press and the public on surveys to shape the race. That in turn has prompted new questioning of the bedrock principle among political strategists […] Read more »
Were 2020 election polls wrong? FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver explains how to interpret polling
… The disparity between state polling before the election and the election returns has once again raised questions about whether polls delivered an accurate preview of actual voting — and whether there’s a fundamental shortcoming with polling itself. FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver said what his team does is provide “likely […] Read more »
Even if Trump loses, the takeaway for some top Republicans is that embracing him worked
President Trump may well be on his way out of Washington, but you wouldn’t know it from the way top congressional Republicans are talking about him. There’s a sense in Republican circles that Trump being on the ballot actually lifted them to higher-than-expected success in House, Senate and statehouse races, […] Read more »
Poll Hub: Post-Election Analysis
On this week’s episode of Poll Hub, Election Day has turned into Election Week. We assess where the count stands and tackle the criticism about this year’s pre-election polls. Is the criticism warranted, or is it too soon to judge? We have our take. Marist Poll Read more »