How the polls could have caught ‘surprise’ victories like Trump’s

Many pollsters have been asked to explain why they didn’t better predict the 2016 election. 3dfoto/shutterstock.com Fred Wright, North Carolina State University The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency surprised almost everyone, including apparently Trump himself. On the morning after the 2016 election, my teenage son made snarky […] Read more »

Nate Silver will make one firm prediction about the midterms. Most journalists won’t want to hear it.

After the roller-coaster ride of 2016’s election night, have journalists and political junkies learned not to let conventional wisdom substitute for hard knowledge? Nate Silver — the closest thing there is to a celebrity in the arcane field of statistical journalism — is not wildly optimistic about that. CONT. Margaret […] Read more »