Once again the polls in this Presidential election for the most part have proven to be outside the margin of error they were pushing in many states. Why are the polls so F-ed up? Is it innate bias of polling firms? Their inability to get large enough sample sizes? Those willing to respond tend to lean left? Why? We still don’t know much about this election — except that the media and pollsters blew it again https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...c0d416-1e4a-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html
Some findings from a post-election Public Opinion Strategies (R) survey: Donald Trump won the 30% who voted on Election Day by 26 points (59% for Trump/33% for Biden). Late deciders broke heavily towards Trump. Among voters who decided in October or later (11% of the electorate), Trump won by 16 points (51% Trump/35% Biden/14% Third Party Candidate). Trump continued to enjoy crushing margins among non-college white men (67% Trump/27% Biden) Joe Biden did win seniors, but by just one point (48% Trump/49% Biden). There were more “shy Trump voters” than “shy Biden voters.” Nineteen percent (19%) of Trump voters said they kept their support for Trump a secret from most of their friends, compared to just 8% of Biden voters.
Full text of WP article We still don’t know much about this election — except that the media and pollsters blew it again https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...c0d416-1e4a-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html By early morning Wednesday, there was a lot that millions of anxious Americans didn’t know. Mainly, they didn’t know who the president-elect is. That, in itself, wasn’t unexpected, nor is it terrible. But after consuming hours of news on Tuesday night, and observing the election results thus far, there are a few things that we can be certain of. ● That we should never again put as much stock in public opinion polls, and those who interpret them, as we’ve grown accustomed to doing. Polling seems to be irrevocably broken, or at least our understanding of how seriously to take it is. The supposedly commanding lead that Joe Biden carried for weeks didn’t last very long into Tuesday evening. This was a lead, remember, that many predicted could result in a landslide Biden victory, help turn the Senate blue, and bring the Democrats amazing victories in red states like Ohio and Florida. It didn’t take long for that dream to dissipate into a much more typical process of divvying up the states into red and blue, with a lot of unknowns added in. But none of it amounted to the clear repudiation of Trump that a lot of the polling caused us to think was coming. (As for the New York Times “needle” that projected results for Georgia, North Carolina and Florida? Just as in 2016, the way the graphic twitched and swerved throughout the evening once again was capable of provoking a heart attack or, depending on your politics, nausea.) ● The news media, in general, has not done a good job of covering the Latino vote. “One day after this election is over I am going to write a piece about how Latino is a contrived ethnic category that artificially lumps white Cubans with Black Puerto Ricans and Indigenous Guatemalans . . .” tweeted Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times. A better, more nuanced understanding might have eased the surprise over how critical portions of Florida voted — particularly the strong support for President Trump in the area around Miami. One exception was an Atlantic article by Christian Paz, “What Liberals Don’t Understand About Pro-Trump Latinos,” that unpacked the president’s grasp of “their unique worldview, one rooted in deeply held beliefs about individualism, economic opportunity, and traditional social values.” ● Trump has been extremely well-served by encouraging hatred of the media. The endless mainstream political coverage and commentary about how his bungling of a deadly pandemic had changed everything and there would be a huge political price to pay? Apparently that missed the mark. Instead, it came down, mostly, to tribal red-or-blue politics. It came down to a president who is exceedingly good at assigning damaging labels to his political opponents, at misdirection and yes, at lies. (His opponents are “radical leftists,” for example, or in the case of Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris, “a monster.”) And, of course, Fox News remained the president’s not-so-secret weapon, hammering home his message, serving as his constant guru, muse, and megaphone. On Tuesday morning, Fox & Friends touted an “exclusive” interview with Trump — free air time, in other words, as he’s been getting on a daily basis. ● Despite the predictions of how very different 2020 would be — how unlike 2016 — it all seemed terribly familiar on Tuesday night. “We’re looking at static results,” compared to 2016, said a deflated-looking Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, just before 10 p.m. In 2016, the shocking change away from Democrat-as-sure-bet seemed fresher and in some ways, easier to understand: Hillary Clinton, after all, was a “flawed candidate,” everyone was quick to say. And former FBI director James Comey’s late announcement that reinvigorated the scandal over her email practices was a killer, of course. This cycle was supposed to be different. Biden, after all, is an unobjectionable White male — unexciting, perhaps, but thoroughly decent. There has been no October surprise to trip him up. He chose a Black woman as his running mate, which should have helped with some voters, and probably did, but probably backfired with others. But, remarkably, none of that seemed to matter very much. When CBS News correspondent John Dickerson interviewed voters for last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” program, one swing-state Trump loyalist — a White woman — told him that she simply didn’t believe the negative or damaging things about the president that he brought up. No, that’s just the media spinning fake news, she said. And that is one of Trump’s great accomplishments: Turning huge swaths of the country against nuanced fact and toward the comforting simplicity of tribe. Again, this is not over. There may yet be a President Biden and a Vice President Harris. There’s a lot we still don’t know. But at least one thing is sure. This didn’t go the way we expected it to.
National polls have picked the popular vote winner in 5 of the last 5 presidential elections. National polls have picked the EC winner in 4 of the last 5 presidential elections.
It may just be outdated metrics which are no longer useful. It could just as well be the industry has been weaponized by leftists to sway votes towards their chosen candidate, and if that fails to produce the desired result they still have it to delegitimize the unexpected winner. It's win/win for them. Actually it's quite an effective strategy.
They wanted to keep trump voters from turning out. Tell them they have no chance and hopefully they stay home. Did the same thing in '16. Media is the enemy
True but national polls and approval ratings are still exetremly accurate in picking the overall winner.
They were more off this time than last time I think. I have to imagine this has everything to do with nobody answering pollsters anymore. I know I've never answered a single one.