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 »
How much did polls miss the mark on Trump — and why?
Trump’s poll and forecast-defying victory Tuesday immediately raised criticisms of a crisis in public opinion polling, with CNN anchor Jake Tapper saying the result would put the polling and voter projection industry “out of business.” … An analysis of 145 polls nationally and in 16 states completed within one week […] Read more »
The Data Said Clinton Would Win. Why You Shouldn’t Have Believed It.
It was a rough night for number crunchers. And for the faith that people in every field — business, politics, sports and academia — have increasingly placed in the power of data. Donald J. Trump’s victory ran counter to almost every major forecast — undercutting the belief that analyzing reams […] Read more »
The Polls and Predictors Were Off, But Not By as Much as it Seems
Going into Election Day, political forecasters predicted the most likely outcome was a victorious Hillary Clinton, a Democratic Senate, and the House still firmly in Republican hands. Instead, Donald J. Trump emerged as the 45th president of the United States, while the GOP managed to hold on to both houses […] Read more »
Why 2016 election polls missed their mark
The results of Tuesday’s presidential election came as a surprise to nearly everyone who had been following the national and state election polling, which consistently projected Hillary Clinton as defeating Donald Trump. Relying largely on opinion polls, election forecasters put Clinton’s chance of winning at anywhere from 70% to as […] Read more »
Public v. Private Polling
In 2016 I worked with two very different types of data sources: public and private. I used public polling and prediction markets data to predict the outcome of the 51 Electoral College (46 or 47 of 51), 34 Senatorial (31 or 32 of 34), 435 House (TBD), and 12 Gubernatorial […] Read more »