Thread: the Polling Debacle

The polling was awful this election. So bad, they will not be trusted again. Polling, if done correctly, is a science. Not even close this time. Different companies identified their sample surveys differently, and the old-school telephone method is not working. Some say social media has altered the landscape.


November 09, 2016, 03:19 am
Pollsters suffer huge embarrassment
By Jonathan Easley

Axelrod says Obama will meet with President elect on Thursday
TheHill.com

Pollsters and election modelers suffered an industry-shattering embarrassment at the hands of Donald Trump on Tuesday night.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, had long said the polls were biased against him. His claims — dismissed and mocked by the experts — turned out to be true.


“It’s going to put the polling industry out of business,” said CNN anchor Jake Tapper. “It’s going to put the voter projection industry out of business.”

Going into Election Day, a strong majority of pollsters and election modelers forecast that Democrat Hillary Clinton would coast to victory, with many predicting she would sweep the battlegrounds and win north of 300 electoral votes.

The final University of Virginia Center for Politics model had Clinton winning 322 electoral votes to 216 for Trump, with Clinton winning Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states that she lost.

Liberals lashed out at data guru Nate Silver for giving Trump a 35 percent chance of victory heading into Election Day, claiming he was putting his thumb on the scale for Trump by making the race appear closer than it was.

Of the 11 national polls to be released in the final week of the race, only two — a Los Angeles Times/USC survey and one from IBD/TIPP — showed Trump with the lead.

The L.A. Times survey was criticized as “experimental” by industry experts for polling the same pool of people and for the way it weighted black voters.

But for the second consecutive presidential cycle, the L.A. Times and IBD/TIPP surveys were among the most accurate, making them the gold standard going forward.

The rest of the polls showed Clinton with leads of between 2 and 6 points, boosting the Democrat to a 3.3-point national lead in the RealClearPolitics average.

And the battleground data was just as biased against Trump.

There were no surveys released this year from Wisconsin that showed Trump with a lead.

Clinton held a 6.5 point lead in the Badger State heading into Election Day, and the state was not even discussed as on par with Michigan or Pennsylvania as a potential blue state pick-up for Trump.

Trump’s victory in Wisconsin — a state that has not gone for the GOP nominee since 1984 — helped him seal the deal.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania, deep blue states the GOP candidate has not won in decades, polls showed the race tightening in the home stretch, but only one poll, from Trafalgar Group, showed Trump with the lead.

Election modelers declined to flip either state into Trump’s column, even as the Clinton campaign rushed furiously to defend those states in the final days of the election.

And Trump won North Carolina by nearly 4 points, despite polls showing a toss-up there.

Many early reports coming out of the Tar Heel State bought the Clinton campaign’s spin that Hispanic turnout had spiked to such a degree that it would make up for a decline in early voting among African-Americans.

The conventional wisdom among many pollsters was that the race would be somewhat close nationally — in the 2- to 3-point range — with Clinton running the table, as President Obama did, in the battleground states that determine the outcome.

But state after state told the same story for Trump and Clinton.

White working-class voters — the silent majority that Trump said was being underestimated by pollsters — swarmed for him on Election Day, particularly in the Rust Belt states, and helped him beat the polls.

Clinton could not turn out women, or the Obama coalition of minorities and young voters, in the same numbers to keep pace.

Pollster John Zogby believes that many in the industry weighted their polls too heavily in favor of Democrats, pointing to polls that had an 8- to 9-point advantage for the party, when it should have been in the 4- to 5-point range, he said.

It’s a claim that Trump made throughout the process.

But pollsters largely dismissed that notion, saying that Democrats turn out in larger numbers in a presidential election year and that Republicans were losing registered voters, who were increasingly identifying as independents.

That assumption will have to be reexamined.

Furthermore, many pollsters confidently predicted that women would reject Trump and vote in favor of Clinton’s history-making candidacy in record numbers.

An Associated Press analysis found Clinton bested Trump by 13 points among women — no better than the margin Obama got in 2008 or 2012.

Trump, meanwhile, got the support of 70 percent of white men without a college education, besting Mitt Romney’s showing in 2012 by 10 points, the AP study found.

Whereas Obama received about 33 percent support from white men without a college degree, Clinton received just over 20 percent support.

Democratic strategist Steve Schale, an expert on Florida politics, said that in Volusia County, Fla., Trump beat Clinton among whites by 34,000. Obama won whites there in 2008 by nearly 14,000.

Few models or polls predicted there would be enough white voters to turn out to counterbalance demographic trends that were believed to tilt heavily in Clinton’s favor.

It is also possible that the third-party candidates — long forgotten by pollsters as they faded down the stretch — will end up having an outsized impact on the race.

Libertarian Gary Johnson took more than 3.5 percent support in Wisconsin and Michigan, enough to make up the difference between Trump and Clinton. He took 2.5 percent support in Pennsylvania, which was decided by about 1 point.

Whatever the reason, pollsters will have to reassess after a dismal showing in 2016 that produced a result almost no one foresaw.

Pollsters suffer huge embarrassment | TheHill

Landy sure is quiet lately.

His polls were indeed rather foolish.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Landy sure is quiet lately.

His polls were indeed rather foolish.

Yes, Landy is nowhere to be found.

And how about MrG,

Where are ya G?

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

Yes, Landy is nowhere to be found.

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

And how about MrG,

You reported polls as well. Now you are trying to ridicule these posters for something you did as well?

Originally Posted by Humbert

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

Yes, Landy is nowhere to be found.

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

And how about MrG,

You reported polls as well. Now you are trying to ridicule these posters for something you did as well?

I'm not ridiculing them, I'm joking b/c they supported HRC and I did not.

Yes, I put up some polls.

And I've learned since, like the rest of us that the polling was shit.

A topic for discussion no less.

Actually all the polling was in the margins of error. Almost impossible to predict when you have states that were won with a majority of 16,000 (when Jill Stein polled 30,000).

Trump won <50% of the popular vote but 57% of the electoral vote.

Moral of the story?

If the popular vote is within the margin of error, it is meaningless.

Something to remember if we're not all dead in 2020.

told you guys, you were all excited by silly winning statistics that meant fuck all in the real world,

and here you had your demonstration,

it was like the subprime crisis with the security price modeling based on silly statistics projections, eventually it all exploded !!!

Me thinks the Donald and the Vlad will sort global demographics out in short order.
Like fuck the ME bullshit. Let Israel sort it out, no one is afraid of America anymore, but they should be very afraid of Israel. Israel has the very latest weapons and nukes!

Kiss your muhamed ass goodbye!

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Me thinks the Donald and the Vlad will sort global demographics out in short order.
Like fuck the ME bullshit. Let Israel sort it out, no one is afraid of America anymore, but they should be very afraid of Israel. Israel has the very latest weapons and nukes!

Kiss your muhamed ass goodbye!

Well I was already planning for the next Republican-made global financial crisis, so I'm guessing this can only help it along.

How wrong were the polls in predicting the US election and why did they fail to see Trump's win?

The Telegraph - How wrong were the polls in predicting the US election and why did they fail to see Trump's win?

Originally Posted by From The Telegraph Article

It looks as though polling in these swing states failed to see just how many white working class people - the core of Trump's support - would turn out to push him over the line.
....

It's important to note that not all polls were wrong. Over the last two months, 10 polls published on Real Clear Politics gave Trump the lead.

Nine of these were from from the LA Times, and one was from Fox - out of a total of 93 polls between 8 September and 8 November.

The LA Times said that one reason they believe their polling was successful was because they didn't underestimate Trump's support, as their online system captured people's will better than phone polls.

They said: "Trump voters were notably less comfortable about telling a telephone pollster about their vote. Voters who backed a third-party candidate were even less comfortable responding to a poll. Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote."

While it was indeed Clinton who won the popular vote, questions will now be asked about why the LA Times was the only polling company to see these "forgotten men and women" and consistently predict Trump's win.

the Polling Debacle -
sure was, but that didn't stop the media continuing on, as normal
quoting exit polls as fact

Originally Posted by Humbert

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

Yes, Landy is nowhere to be found.

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

And how about MrG,

You reported polls as well. Now you are trying to ridicule these posters for something you did as well?

The polls from lalaland don't translate to well into the real world do they?

Whoever was in charge of polling was biased as in Brexit.
Why were they biased?
The pollsters and media have lost all credibility in the past year.

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

Why were they biased?

It's hard to say, but the globalists followed the exact same blueprint as brexit:

non stop flasely branding one side racist etc, which probably meant many keep their voting intentions quiet

Also they wanted the outcome to look like a no contest,
maybe thinking that people are less likely to turn out to vote for their candidate, if they seem certain to lose

Originally Posted by blue

Also they wanted the outcome to look like a no contest,
maybe thinking that people are less likely to turn out to vote for their candidate, if they seem certain to lose

In a nutshell , my thoughts also.
You'd have thought they'd have learnt their lesson from Brexit.
I doubt that they have taken on board their actions..

Was it Facebook 'wot won it'? - BBC News

The Facebook Factor?

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

Whoever was in charge of polling was biased as in Brexit.
Why were they biased?
The pollsters and media have lost all credibility in the past year.

Two reasons why polls are innacurate:

1. bias

2. error


No, we cannot trust polling anymore.

Originally Posted by UrbanMan

How wrong were the polls in predicting the US election and why did they fail to see Trump's win?

The Telegraph - How wrong were the polls in predicting the US election and why did they fail to see Trump's win?

Originally Posted by From The Telegraph Article

It looks as though polling in these swing states failed to see just how many white working class people - the core of Trump's support - would turn out to push him over the line.
....

It's important to note that not all polls were wrong. Over the last two months, 10 polls published on Real Clear Politics gave Trump the lead.

Nine of these were from from the LA Times, and one was from Fox - out of a total of 93 polls between 8 September and 8 November.

The LA Times said that one reason they believe their polling was successful was because they didn't underestimate Trump's support, as their online system captured people's will better than phone polls.

They said: "Trump voters were notably less comfortable about telling a telephone pollster about their vote. Voters who backed a third-party candidate were even less comfortable responding to a poll. Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote."

While it was indeed Clinton who won the popular vote, questions will now be asked about why the LA Times was the only polling company to see these "forgotten men and women" and consistently predict Trump's win.

This is bollocks. The LA Times consistently had Trump in front in the popular vote, and they were consistently wrong.

Originally Posted by blue

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

Why were they biased?

It's hard to say, but the globalists followed the exact same blueprint as brexit:

non stop flasely branding one side racist etc, which probably meant many keep their voting intentions quiet

Also they wanted the outcome to look like a no contest,
maybe thinking that people are less likely to turn out to vote for their candidate, if they seem certain to lose

It was generally accepted that the higher the turnout, the higher the likelihood of a Clinton win, so as usual you're completely wrong.

The left wing only talks to other leftwingers, the left wing only believes other leftwingers, the left wings leaderships lies to them all the time, thus......

And those who told the truth were mocked ruthlessly, attacked ruthlessly, bye?? Guess who?? the left wing as idiots, totally clueless, dumb as rocks.

Originally Posted by pulvarien

The left wing only talks to other leftwingers, the left wing only believes other leftwingers, the left wings leaderships lies to them all the time, thus......

And those who told the truth were mocked ruthlessly, attacked ruthlessly, bye?? Guess who?? the left wing as idiots, totally clueless, dumb as rocks.

What "truth"?

The kind of shite you keep regurgitating?

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

Originally Posted by blue

Also they wanted the outcome to look like a no contest,
maybe thinking that people are less likely to turn out to vote for their candidate, if they seem certain to lose

In a nutshell , my thoughts also.
You'd have thought they'd have learnt their lesson from Brexit.
I doubt that they have taken on board their actions..

It has nothing to do with learning their lesson,it has to do with attempting to create the outcome they wanted.