Why Do The Polls Keep Getting It Wrong?

[Cow Poke]

Why Do The Polls Keep Getting It Wrong?

The results shown in the graph demonstrate a clear trend. While our exit poll was almost spot-on in the 2011 election, it showed Republicans doing increasingly poor in our exit poll compared to actual results and Democrats doing increasingly better over five years of elections. In 2016, our exit poll showed Donald Trump winning 52.6 percent of Boyle County voters (he actually won 62.1 percent) and Hillary Clinton winning 47.4 percent (she actually won 33 percent).

First, this is HuffPo, and they seem to be acknowledging that the pollsters are getting it wrong, and trying to figure out why.


Your opinions are welcome, but this is not a "hate Trump" thread.

[Mountain Man]

I think pollsters are still using data from when Obama was in the White House and Democrat voters had a lot of enthusiasm, and they haven't reconfigured their metrics to take current reality into account.

[mikewhitney]

There is an odd point made in that article:

A more likely explanation is that Republican voters in Boyle County, Kentucky, especially the kind inclined to support Donald Trump’s brand of anti-elite populism, became increasingly unwilling to participate in the exit poll surveys on Election Day over the last several years. After all, anti-establishment politics have become increasingly popular lately.

The term anti-establishment is not appropriate if interpreted to mean that people are against having a proper government. But the term is appropriate if it means that people are against those politicians who have been established into their offices -- who created a non-functional congress which acts against the constitution and against the people.

The article also included the populist term. This term seems to be used to describe people who don't blindly accept the Democrat and Republican parties selected candidates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism notes "North America, populism has often been characterised by regional mobilization and weak organisation."

This term seems unAmerican. Of course the people don't want some narrow group determining who should represent us. In a sense, every election should be populism -- at least in the way elections are done now.

Of course, a population vote for US Government positions was not the original design. Originally, we were supposed to have the State governments select the electoral college. I don't know what would be better at the moment. Certainly, we shouldn't give the California government any more corruptive power than it has now.

The wiki article, especially, sounds elitist. The huffpost also is. These sound like it is insulting to their intelligence that people have a desire for freedom.

[seanD]

Trump stigmata.

[Sparko]

It's my fault! Whenever I get called to participate in a poll, I lie my butt off. sorry.

[Cow Poke]

It's my fault! Whenever I get called to participate in a poll, I lie my butt off. sorry.

They never EVER call me.

[Sparko]

They never EVER call me.

Really? I get called all the time. I must be speshul.

[Cow Poke]

Really? I get called all the time. I must be speshul.

Not a single time in my entire (thus far) life. Never. Not one time.

Listen to me one last time... I NEVER had sekshule relations with that woman.....

oh, wait - that was somebody else.

[Sparko]

it's usually "rate the following questions from unlikely, very unlikely, likely or very likely. or something like that. Definitely no, no, maybe, yes, definitely yes, maybe yes, sort of yes, and who knows.
I get so confused.

[Ronson]

First, this is HuffPo, and they seem to be acknowledging that the pollsters are getting it wrong, and trying to figure out why.

Your opinions are welcome, but this is not a "hate Trump" thread.

Can this be a "hate HuffPo" thread? Those are more fun.

I've had pollsters call me on the phone (none very recently) and I've always declined. I just consider it an intrusion. Perhaps a globalist will see it as part of their global duty to let others know their preferences, but I'm busy and the pollster is a pest. I'm simply not interested. Maybe if they paid me I'd feel differently.

I remember back in the 1980s I had the Nielsen group send me a TV schedule/ballot type thing in the mail to mark down what I watched during the week. I thought it was a big hassle and I would have chucked it in the trash - except - the envelope included a $1 bill for my trouble. That made me feel a bit sorry for them, and would feel guilty to throw the ballot away. So they got me.

[seer]

Really? I get called all the time. I must be speshul.

I got called one time during W's first run, when I began to explain that I was voting Bush the girl hung up on me. And it was a well known polling group.

[Ronson]

The article also included the populist term. This term seems to be used to describe people who don't blindly accept the Democrat and Republican parties selected candidates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism notes "North America, populism has often been characterised by regional mobilization and weak organisation."

This term seems unAmerican. Of course the people don't want some narrow group determining who should represent us. In a sense, every election should be populism -- at least in the way elections are done now.

Excellent point. I can't stand the term. It's what I expect elitists to use to describe the unwashed masses; the little people. Democracy is all about populism.

[Mountain Man]

I was called once about 15-years ago, but I refused to answer the questions the way the pollster really wanted me to. They wanted me to pick one of two options, and I said neither option reflected my opinion, and that I wanted "neither" to be my answer. But the form didn't allow for that, so my response was discarded, and I haven't been called since.