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One year ago the reliability of opinion polling was made starkly evident. Login/Join 
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
posted


A night to remember, indeed, though not in the way they anticipated at Wellesley when they put that sign up. Smile

Question:
With the benefit of a year to reflect, why do you think the polls were so wrong?

Choices:
In the era of violence creeping back into politics and with the current state of privacy, people not favoring Clinton were reluctant to admit it to strangers
Sampling missed Trump voters and oversampled others
Pollsters knew the story but shaded their stories to try to affect the result
The tea leaves were there but were being honestly misread
Other (please explain)

 
 
Posts: 15026 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
stupid beyond
all belief
Picture of Deqlyn
posted Hide Post
It was quite obvious a purposeful misreading. When you looked at the polls they were weighted incorrectly. Hillary is +20 in OH but the mice type showed they polled 20 more democrats than republicans or indys. They didn't both mentioning it but several polls showed that in the articles. I stuck to my guns on the USC poll as it has the best record and sample size. You can look in the locked trump thread and see me referencing it.



What man is a man that does not make the world better. -Balian of Ibelin

Only boring people get bored. - Ruth Burke
 
Posts: 8227 | Registered: September 13, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
In the yahd, not too
fah from the cah
Picture of ryan81986
posted Hide Post
I honestly think it's a mixed bag of reason. I'm sure there were a large amount of Trump supporters that simply kept their mouth shut. That combined with sampling from specific locations only and polls that were skewed in favor of a certain result.




 
Posts: 6348 | Location: Just outside of Boston | Registered: March 28, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Unapologetic Old
School Curmudgeon
Picture of Lord Vaalic
posted Hide Post
I think a lot of Trump supporters just didn't want to admit it and hear it from others, and others maybe didn't want to admit to themselves that they were going to vote for Trump.

In the end, it was "fashionable" and cool to be for Hillary but they just couldn't bring themselves to actually cast the vote for her.

And many others of the conservative bent just don't like to air their business and are private people




Don't weep for the stupid, or you will be crying all day
 
Posts: 10728 | Location: TN | Registered: December 18, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Get Off My Lawn
Picture of oddball
posted Hide Post
I think a mix of 2 & 3.

Heading towards election day, I was convinced that Trump was going to win because the sampling of the mainstream polls were so skewed to favor liberal demographics, they were not only wrong, but corrupted. Exit polls that day were controlled by the liberal media.

Like Snopes, when leftists control the information, there is a good chance someone is lying through their teeth.



"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
 
Posts: 16688 | Location: Texas | Registered: May 13, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ubique
Picture of TSE
posted Hide Post
The national results were actually pretty close. They had Hillary up about 4% and she got about that in the popular vote.
The state results all had higher margins of error and in many cases the margins of error were greater than the spread between votes.
It is likely that next time around both parties will treat the close states differently with respect to polling sample size etc.


Calgary Shooting Centre
 
Posts: 1494 | Location: Alberta | Registered: July 06, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
Picture of parabellum
posted Hide Post
I was saying it long before November, 2016- ignore polls entirely. Polls are easily manipulated and should never be trusted.

If a pollster calls you, just hang up on them. Don't give them misleading information. Give them nothing at all.
 
Posts: 107551 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Thank you
Very little
Picture of HRK
posted Hide Post
One of the polls called me and I told them I was voting for Bernie....

Screw um, its none of their beeswax and figured if I told them to piss off they'd just mark it one way or the other anyway.

Wonder how many others do that.
 
Posts: 23414 | Location: Florida | Registered: November 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do the next
right thing
Picture of bobtheelf
posted Hide Post
Polling did a terrible job of predicting turnout and enthusiasm. Same thing that happened in Virginia yesterday.
 
Posts: 3660 | Location: Nashville | Registered: July 23, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
“My forecasting is none too good, particularly when it pertains to the future.” Lawrence Berra

They rely on statistics, 67.3% of which are misleading, and the rest flat wrong.

Statistics are real good for flipping fair coins, judging probabilities of closed systems, like cards in a deck, but as one moves into imponderable human actions, there are many problems.

Models based on the past work until they don’t. Look up Long Term Capital Management for the story of half a dozen geniuses burning through ~$6 billion or so under a statistically sophisticated trading algorithm that should have not happened in the life of thr universe times 7.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Coin Sniper
Picture of Rightwire
posted Hide Post
First, I can't believe you did a poll on the unreliability of polls... Razz


I think the people polled, and the questions asked we're slanted. I think it was done on purpose to drive an agenda and prey on people that they hoped would vote for the candidate that it appeared would win.




Pronoun: His Royal Highness and benevolent Majesty of all he surveys

343 - Never Forget

Its better to be Pavlov's dog than Schrodinger's cat

There are three types of mistakes; Those you learn from, those you suffer from, and those you don't survive.
 
Posts: 37957 | Location: Above the snow line in Michigan | Registered: May 21, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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