Nate Silver agrees with me that much of that shocking 2% swing can be explained by systematic differences between sample and population: survey respondents included too many Clinton supporters, even after corrections from existing survey adjustments. In Nate’s words, “Pollsters Probably Didn’t Talk To Enough White Voters Without College Degrees.” […] Read more »
Pollsters Probably Didn’t Talk To Enough White Voters Without College Degrees
… With Clinton’s lead in the popular vote still expanding, the national polls are going to wind up having been pretty good (they showed her winning by 3 to 4 percentage points, and she’ll eventually win by about 2 points). The state polls? Not so hot. What matters, though, is […] Read more »
How Republicans got polling right in 2016
Many pundits were surprised by Donald Trump’s win, prompting the question, ‘How did the polls get this so wrong?’ Indeed, particularly at the state level, a number of public polls missed the final results by a wide margin. But polls conducted for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) were among […] Read more »
How to recover from the polling disaster of 2016? Look beyond polls.
Planes rarely crash because one instrument fails or one gauge gives a bad reading. Rather, the right combination of things fail in tandem — a mechanical problem paired with bad weather, a backup system malfunctioning at the same time as a pilot error — leading to catastrophe. The disaster of […] 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 »
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 »