Once again Trump was underestimated by the pollsters, Trump scoring three points higher than the polling aggregate on election day. Rasmussen was the closest, showing a consistent Trump lead of one to three points throughout the campaign. Polling is an art, not a science, and to pretend otherwise is, in the phrase of Hayek, the pretense of knowledge.
Polling Gets Trump Wrong Again
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I think a generation ago polling was more precise than it is today because the technology of random digit dialing allowed you to assemble probability samples. Nowadays, they assemble convenience samples and then massage the numbers with models. The models, among other things, have to account for Democrats’ more intense propensity to mouth off to strangers. Another problem was alluded to by Nate Silver: some of these poll results are deliberately faked.
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I do find it amusing the abrupt drop in the raw vote total for the Democratic candidate.
I do find it amusing the abrupt drop in the raw vote total for the Democratic candidate.
The Biden spike is sui generis, or should I say fraud generis.
I don’t want to blame the polls, since a lot of people decide late or aren’t sure if they’re going to vote at all. Trump had a great final two weeks. The MSG rally, the newspaper non-endorsements, the Rogan interview, and a terrible jobs report. Harris barely made the news; Biden got more attention for his “garbage” comment.
“The Biden spike is sui generis, or should I say fraud generis.”
Quite possibly, although some have cautioned that it’s too soon to compare total 2024 vote totals (still incomplete in some Western states) with final 2020 totals. Eugene Volokh stated a couple of days ago that he expects the final popular vote total for 2024 to be around 76 million for Kamala and 79 million for Trump. That would mean that Kamala underperformed by at least 5 million votes from Biden, and I don’t believe ALL of that can be explained simply by her being a lousy candidate.
I don’t want to blame the polls,
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Why do you have any antecedent preferences on to whom to blame?
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since a lot of people decide late or aren’t sure if they’re going to vote at all.
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1988 was a few years ago.
[…] MagazineLegacy Media Indict Themselves When They Blame Right-Wing Media Ecosystem – FederalistPolling Gets Trump Wong Again – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American CatholicTrump, Tribalism, & Transformation […]
The goal of most polling has become not to predict but to sway an election.. but the People’s Pundit nailed it. https://x.com/Peoples_Pundit
Please fix the typo in the headline.
Oops corrected, although I suppose there might be a pollster with the surname of Wong!