Embarrassing polling flubs seem increasingly common. Going into the Michigan primary, surveys showed Hillary Clinton leading Sen. Bernie Sanders among likely voters by double digits, only to have Sanders pull off a stunning two-point victory on March 8. A similar forecasting failure befell the British elections last year, when pollsters […] Read more »
Yes, you can trust international surveys. Mostly.
How do you know when research is based on falsified data? That’s one of the challenges faced throughout statistical research. Noble Kuriakose and I authored a paper (forthcoming in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS) that outlines a technique to detect potential fraud in public opinion surveys. … A useful […] Read more »
Beyond exit polls: AP tests online surveys of voters
To help in calling winners and explaining why candidates won, The Associated Press has been testing new ways to survey voters around Election Day. After all, in the last presidential election, more than a third of voters did not go to a polling place on Election Day but instead voted […] Read more »
Why the polls totally underestimated Bernie Sanders in Michigan
Last night, Bernie Sanders pulled off a stunning upset in Michigan that almost no one expected — after all, he had been trailing by more than 20 points in much of the polling mere days before. Why were the polls so wrong? CONT. Jeff Stein, Vox Read more »
Why The Polls Missed Bernie Sanders’s Michigan Upset
If Bernie Sanders were to defeat Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s Democratic primary, it would be “among the greatest polling errors in primary history,” our editor in chief, Nate Silver, wrote Tuesday evening when results started to come in. Sanders pulled it off, and now we’re left wondering how it happened. […] Read more »
5 numbers that explain Tuesday’s election results
… Going in to Tuesday, public surveys showed Clinton with a prohibitive lead over Sanders in Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary. … Polls appear to have underestimated the number of Republicans and independents who crossed over to back Sanders. According to exit polls, only 69 percent of Democratic primary voters identified […] Read more »