If you’ve been with me on the blog for more than just a minute you know how much I despise “polls.” There are few if any polls that are conducted of real value these days. Give me the outcome you want and I can come up with a poll to give you the desired result pretty easily.
After spectacularly blowing the 2016 election by telling everyone that Hillary was not only going to win but probably would do so in a landslide pollsters promised to dive in and fix the problems they had. They’d figure out how to change their processes for greater accuracy. The changes ended up with them doing even worse in 2020.
A new, highly anticipated report from the leading association of pollsters confirms just how wrong the 2020 election polls were. But nine months after that closer-than-expected contest, the people asking why are still looking for answers. Here we are again – fake shit reported nine months ago, that we can’t do anything about now, except find out that, whoops, we screwed up again.
National surveys of the 2020 presidential contest were the least accurate in 40 years, while the state polls were the worst in at least two decades, according to the new, comprehensive report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
According to the report, national polls of the presidential race conducted in the final two weeks of the election were off by an average of 4.5 percentage points, while the state polls were off by just over 5 points. Most of the error was in one direction: Looking at the vote margin, the national polls were too favorable to now-President Joe Biden by 3.9 points, and the state polls were 4.3 points too favorable for Biden.
Most of the error came from underestimating Trump’s support, as opposed to overestimating Biden’s. Comparing the final election results to the poll numbers for each candidate, Trump’s support was understated by a whopping 3.3 points on average, while Biden’s was overstated by a point.
It wasn’t just a Trump effect, either. The polls of Senate and governor’s races were off by an even greater margin: 6 points on average. That’s insane.
You knew some of those polls were not only bad but frankly were a complete joke. One poll said that Trump was down 19 points in Wisconsin. Yes Mr. Pollster, I too could have walked through the brainwashed students walking along campus in Madison and found a 19 point Biden lead too. Step outside of there and Milwaukee and folks may think and feel a bit differently.
Several polls in Maine were cheered by Democrats as it was obvious that Susan Collin’s support of Brett Kavanaugh was costing her the Senate seat she was holding. Some polls had her down as much as 10%. She ended up pounding her challenger by nearly the same margin. It wasn’t even close.
Two examples – 20 point discrepancies. It’s mind-boggling.
And frankly – here it comes Democrats – it’s voter suppression. When you are so inept at something, or perhaps intentionally selling your own version of the future using false results, that you send out news like that you are effectively telling the losers “you might as well just not go out and vote, it’s over.”
I’m convinced to this day the reason Hillary lost is because come election day she had terrible turnout because the media had told her voters that she already had it in the bag. Why bother going to vote when you knew she was going to win and miss an episode of Maury?
I 100% believe that polling around elections should be outlawed in this country. There is one poll, and one poll only – the actual election. Let’s just keep that one.
I agree and would go even further regarding polls on or around election day. It is VOTER SUPPRESSION when the MSM begins to “Call” races in states in the EST while the CST, MST and PST are still voting. Add in Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, you’ve nullified their votes. No, we need to have an election in which no one tampers with the votes, PERIOD!