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Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Failed Polls Call Profession Into Question

The polls blew it. [AGAIN-- Editor.]

U.S. survey companies and media organizations that collectively presaged a close Hillary Clinton victory now face an autopsy on how they got it so wrong after a year suffused by polls, aggregates of polls and even real-time projections of the vote on Election Day.

While the predictions gave some observers a soothing sense of certainty, actual voters still possessed the capacity to shock. Donald Trump’s commanding performance defied the final surveys of the American electorate, which broadly predicted a Clinton win of 2 to 4 percentage points.

“It’s harder and harder to poll today, to get a sample that looks like the electorate,” said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “We’ve seen epic fails.”

Tuesday’s results were just the latest high-profile predictive failure around the world, following on the heels of misleading surveys on the Colombia peace deal referendum this year and Greece’s bailout referendum in 2015. Surveys were rendered inaccurate by new forms of technology and communication and political questions unlike any seen in recent history. The inaccuracy called into question a basic gauge of sentiment used by politicians, citizens and financiers.

“The anger is stronger than any of us really expected," said Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management in Boston, which handles money for institutional investors such as pensions and foundations.

The grandfather of U.S. opinion polling, Washington-based Gallup Inc., has pulled back. Four years ago, Gallup endured its third polling defeat in four cycles and walked away from presidential horse-race polling altogether.

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wikileaks emails from Clinton camp "inflate polls".

Anonymous said...

Polls are nonsense.
No one - nobody, especially on the Right - is going to give a straight answer to someone they suspect is on the Left.
I said this from the beginning - and it was true.

Anonymous said...

It's kind of hard to get an accurate reflection when only ones poled are universities, inter-cities, ghettos and MSM. The bastions of marxist communist ideals. I for one have never been polled. A 56 y/o registered independent Employed educated WM. TRUMP 2020!!

Anonymous said...

How did the bookies in Las Vegas do?

Anonymous said...

I do not think the polls were off at all. She won the popular vote. Question is who and where were the people being polled from. Was it from all across America or just certain states? Did the poll coal miners or rural America?

Anonymous said...

I told everybody I knew, repeatedly, DON'T BELIEVE the polls. I was reading one thing & polls were reporting contradictions, REGULARLY. Polls can be construed to return answers that the pollsters are looking for. In other words...RIGGED. It's too easy.

Anonymous said...

11:12 You're WRONG!


"Clinton won the non-white popular vote by a landslide. According to the exit polls, she took 71 percent of non-white college graduate voters and 75 percent of non-white voters without college degrees."

Anonymous said...

Some polls were nationwide and some were limited to individual states. Trafalgar Group was the only company that got it right. They predicted Trump will take PA, NC, FL, OH.

Anonymous said...

A lot of the polls were intentionally skewed to show a desired result. They do this in every election, not only here but abroad as well.

After every recent election we hear 'Wow. The polls were wrong.'

So, let's learn from that. Stop believing the polls.

Just IGNORE them. The only poll that counts is the vote total (and lately, there's no guarantee how accurate that is either..)

Anonymous said...

Clinton won the more liberal urban areas of the country, but the rural areas of the country and suburbs turned out in droves and voted for Trump. Trump won the popular vote overall because of this. The media wasn't counting on this. I truly hope legal action will be taken against the media for slander and inaccurate reporting. I for one will no longer get my news from any of the networks. We need free and independent news agency's that report the news and are not controlled by corporate or government interests. Alternative media has this. Not always the most accurate, but more accurate than the mainstream media.