A string of recent elections around the world have produced seemingly similar results: nationalist and populist parties, generally on the right, keep getting elected. But is it fair to connect political events in places as varied as Australia, India, the Philippines and the European Union? In this episode of the […] Read more »
Why we’re pressing pause on political polling at the Herald and the Age
In the wash-up from last Saturday’s federal election questions are rightly being asked about how all the major public polling companies failed to predict the Morrison government’s victory. … But it’s not just the pollsters who need to reflect on their approach in the wake of this election – the […] Read more »
Poll failure, again
The big news in polling this week: the Australian election! In our Netflix world, I’ve become a fan of Australian TV, but don’t recall anything from down under being big news in the U.S. since 2006, when “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was allegedly killed by a stingray that stabbed him […] Read more »
Australia: Labor’s election loss was not a surprise if you take historical trends into account
If Labor had won on Saturday, Bill Shorten would have been the least popular party leader ever elected prime minister, according to election data. Lukas Coch/AAP Sarah Cameron, University of Sydney and Ian McAllister, Australian National University Polls had predicted a narrow win for Labor in this election, so what […] Read more »
The mathematics does not lie: why polling got the Australian election wrong
… Since the election was called, there were 16 polls that published two-party preferred results ahead of Saturday’s vote. Every single one of them predicted the LNP winning 48% or 49% of the two-party preferred vote, with Labor winning 51% or 52%. These polls were central to the public’s perception […] Read more »
Australia: Pollsters 95 per cent unsure how they got it wrong
The nation’s pollsters are facing calls for greater transparency and an overhaul of their number-crunching after spectacularly missing the result of the federal election. None of the major national pollsters accurately forecast the result, with all putting Labor in a winning position. Combined, Newspoll, Ipsos, Essential and Morgan had Labor […] Read more »