“It was around 9:20 p.m. when conventional wisdom died,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Neil King on election night. That was the moment when the New York Times’s website began projecting that a Donald Trump victory was more likely than not, and it became abundantly obvious that the presidential polls […] Read more »
Lies, Damn Lies, and Exit Polls
In the 36 hours since the results of the Presidential election became clear, a number of “analyses” have emerged suggesting that a surprisingly large share of the Latino vote went to Donald Trump, despite his demonization of Latinos, his attacks on Judge Curiel and Alicia Machado, his blanket hostility to […] Read more »
Epic fail: How a mid-sized error led to a rash of bad forecasts
… While pollsters correctly gauged the sentiment of most slices of the electorate, they underestimated Mr Trump’s appeal to working-class whites. Although it was clear that he would run up the score with these voters, he managed to exceed even pollsters’ rosy expectations for him: projected to win them by […] Read more »
How do you feel? Don’t ask.
What the fuck just happened? First, the near-miss on Scottish independence, then the 2015 general election, Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, Brexit, Corbyn’s re-election and now Donald Trump’s victory. Well, I’ve been working through a theory for a while now. I suspect some of you have been doing the […] Read more »
MTP Podcast: Is Polling Dead? Inside the Data with Dante Chinni
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee had one thing in common toward the end of this election season: They both predicted that the former Secretary of State would win between 300 and 350 Electoral College votes on Election Day. But according to data journalist and Wall Street […] Read more »
Deciphering election polling, from algorithms and youth votes to the Electoral College
The outcome of the 2016 general election in the United States was momentous and surprising. Yet some commentaries seem to suggest that means we need to rethink our basic understandings of voters and elections. I disagree, albeit gently, with that kind of hyperbole. Here’s why. CONT. Laura Stoker, Berkeley Read more »