Posted on 08/24/2016 8:06:56 AM PDT by HomerBohn
Political science tells us Hillary Clinton will win the election—the poll numbers are so clearly in her favor. As of this moment, the authoritative FiveThirtyEight “polls only” forecast says Clinton’s chance of beating Trump is 86.6 percent. But polling is an inexact science, and a lot of pundits are asking: Could the polls be wrong this time?
The first problem they point to is that some Trump voters might be lying to the pollsters. “How Many People Support Trump but Don’t Want to Admit It?” Thomas Edsall asked in a recent op-ed. Some voters don’t want to tell a live interviewer that they back a candidate who has been so offensive and outrageous. The pollsters call this “social desirability bias”—“the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment” in speaking with interviewers on the phone. But on November 8, in the privacy of the voting booth, they will cast their secret ballot for the Republican.
It’s happened before—in California, where I live, we call it “the Bradley Effect.” Tom Bradley, the first black mayor of LA, ran for governor in 1982, and all the polls said he would win—but on election day he lost. White voters broke with Bradley in far higher numbers than polling predicted, and many at the time wondered if it was because he was black. This year we wonder how many men will refuse to vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. They know they’re not supposed to say it, but that won’t stop them from doing it.
The second problem is that the pollsters’ standard criteria for “likely voters” may not work this year. If you are in the polling business, it’s not hard to call people and ask whom they plan to vote for. The hard part is deciding whether to count them as “likely voters”—because more than 40 percent of Americans eligible to vote have not cast a ballot in the last two presidential elections. So all pollsters rank the people they poll on the likelihood of their voting.
On this count the 2012 election was a nightmare for the venerable Gallup poll: They predicted Romney would beat Obama. In their mea culpa afterward they said their number one error was “misidentification of likely voters.” A Pew Research study this year declared that “incorrect forecasts about who will vote . . . may be the most serious” problem facing pollsters. Gallup in 2012 missed Obama supporters because they were ranked “not likely” to vote; pollsters worry the same thing might happen this year with Trump supporters.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has complained about the traditional “likely voter” methodology. It’s pretty straightforward: They ask if the voter is registered, if he intends to vote, if he knows where his polling place is—and whether he’s voted in the past. The most important criterion for a “likely” voter is whether they voted in the last election. If they didn’t, they are typically judged “not likely” to vote, and they are not counted in the poll results. That’s the science of opinion polling, based on historical experience.
But the scientists are not unanimous about this methodology. “A voter can tell you he’s registered,” Nate Silver wrote in 2008, “tell you that he’s certain to vote, tell you that he’s very engaged by the election, tell you that he knows where his polling place is, etc., and still be excluded” from the results if he didn’t vote in the past. Silver thought that if a voter said he intended to vote, he should be counted in the poll results.
So pundits like Silver are worrying that pollsters are using the wrong definition of “likely voter” this time. In fact, that’s what Trump is counting on. His campaign is betting on people who have not voted recently—especially white working-class men alienated by the whole system, who wouldn’t vote for Obama because he is black, but wouldn’t vote for Romney because of his corporate-CEO status. They may get themselves to their polling place this year, for the first time in a long time, to cast a vote for Trump.
Pollsters do measure “intensity” of political preferences. Gallup, for example, asks whether support for a candidate is felt “strongly” or not. The assumption of course is that those who hold their views “strongly” are more likely to show up on election day than those who say they are simply expressing a preference. In 2012, 60 percent of Obama backers supported him “strongly” (the comparable figure for Romney supporters was 38 percent).
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this election has seen voter “intensity” reach new heights. However, a July poll found the level of “strong” support was about equal for both Clinton and Trump—and strikingly low: Pew found in that poll that “fewer than half of both candidates’ supporters said they backed their candidate strongly,” with 45 percent each. The equal proportions suggest intensity is not going to skew the poll results this year.
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The final problem is one everyone knows: the uniqueness of Trump himself. All of political science is based on history, on the idea that patterns in the past will continue in the future. It makes sense: People who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 are unlikely to vote for Trump this year. But Trump is so different from every other candidate in the recent past that pundits fear he could break out of the historic patterns of voting.
That’s pretty much what happened in the primaries, when so many experts said with great conviction that Trump couldn’t win. Their reasoning was strong: He had no ground game, no field operation working to get his supporters to the polls on election day; he had no TV ads, which candidates all consider essential; he wasn’t raising money, or spending it. He had no real campaign organization and no experience in politics. In the past, candidates like that never won. But, of course, the Republican primaries were different this time.
But here’s the thing: The problem with the predictions about the Republican primaries wasn’t actually the polls. The polls’ predictions were largely borne out by the results. In fact, the problem was that the pundits were ignoring the polls. “Trump led in the vast majority of polls,” Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight wrote at the end of the primaries. FiveThirtyEight had 549 polls in their national primary polling database during the primaries; Trump led in 500—in 91 percent. Most if not all of those polls used conventional definitions of “likely voters,” and any “social desirability bias” didn’t end up making the pollsters wrong about the extent of Trump’s support.
So for all the hand-wringing over the polls, maybe the best way to predict the results in November is not to discount the polls. Instead, maybe we should rely less on the pundits who say the polls could be wrong, and more on the polls themselves, which have been pretty accurate about Trump’s support so far this election season. Of course things could change in the next 90 days, but the polls right now are clear: Our next president is Hillary Clinton. •
When polls show Clinton leading by double digits in NC and tied in SC, and tied in Georgia, and tied in Utah, yes they are absolute BS! Trump will take each and every one of those states, winning by double digits in SC, GA, and Utah. But that’s the media narrative. Tell us each day that Trump is losing everywhere, in reliable red states. All America loves the lying witch of Benghazi. The most corrupt politician to ever run for president. I’m having no part of it and no one else should.
Got to remember that because there has been personal or property attacks this time around by the radical left support has been quiet.
I do think the MSM cooks the books for PIAPS.
This is also August and imo won’t start looking at polls in a big way until after Labor Day and then only state polls of likely voters.
That being said, Trump should wake up every day thinking he’s six points down and needs to campaign that way, regardless of what any poll says.
Not exactly. They're fake.
I’m sorry, sir, but Bill Clinton’s popularity shot up over 65% when it was revealed he had an intern under his desk. The majority of Americans want and love a wicked President!
And I always wondered why ?
The good news is that Hillary is very much is disliked, unlike Bill.
I need to read these articles. I’m calling on my fellow Freepers to help me through this time. I am becoming depressed that Hillary will actually win. My children’s future will be gone if she’s elected. I’ve done everything right and have raised them to be God-fearing country loving young ladies. Trump has to win!
The truth is she is not doing so well.
There were Blacks, Asians and Hispanics at the rally we attended in Norcross, GA last year. And a lot of young people.
I sense people are now starting to wake and smell the coffee to see what is going on.
But, that’s just it.
Hillary poll number are NOT strong.
Hillary is stuck in the low 40’s everywhere.
Nearly any poll that shows Hillary winning big is not because Hillary is polling out of the low 40’s it’s because Trump is polling in the high 30’s.
One of those numbers WILL move. Because there is ZERO chance that the two 3rd party candidates get 10-15% of the vote.
As long as Hillary’s numbers stay stuck in the 42 range, I feel Trump will win.
We’re with you Blue Turtle. FreeRepublic has kept me sane(more or less) for 16 years. Stay firm, stay true. I, too have lived in the greatest country in the history of the earth for 61 years. My only fear is for my children. They are going to face challenges larger than the “greatest generation”. Polls are usually right but deep in my bones I fell a 1980 election coming on. Demoralization is a valid political tactic of the left. I have to fight not to fall prey to it, also.
My son-in-law goes around wearing Trump socks, Trump shirt, and Trump hat. LOL
He’s retired military, 27 years (USAF) and a proud Trumpster.
Go Trump!!
One has to wonder how many of those Obama “not likely voters” who showed up in key states were really voter fraud from nursing homes, the dead and fraudulent use of voter names. Of course voting machine tampering could also be a factor.
The polls are the way they are, so when Hillary! loses in November, the pundits, media, Democrats - and current President, Justice Department and most Government leaders - can claim fraud and force a revote or overturn the election in courts.
< /tinfoil hat mode >
There’s nothing the least bit strong about a woman who has recurring tics, spasms, and losses of orientation and memory - not to mention the already-perceived loss of bowel control.
One thing to add ... You aren’t going to see Trump move in the polls until October ... I’ll bet the election remains kind of flat until the first debate.
Trump’s campaign is going to start airing ads ... I’ll bet they’ll ramp up in frequency until the first debate. After that I’m hoping for a blitz throughout October. If that’s their strategy, there are going to be a lot of nervous people posting Hillary friendly polls for another month :-). If Trumps numbers don’t improve throughout October, I’ll be nervous.
Bottom line, the campaign is going to start next month, so please try and do your best to ignore these polls for now :-) (not saying this to you TexasFreeper ... Mainly to people nervous in general ... While I’ve certainly been wrong about many things, I’m pretty sure I’m right about this strategy).
I think Trump has done an outstanding job solidifying his base during his campaign stops this summer. This final phase should grow his support and push him over the top. It’s gonna be HUGE!!! :-)
Most people around me right now are voting Clinton (in this area, not my home). It is baffling to me but they feel no matter what Hillary has done, Trump is worse.
I think Trump can win but it would be foolish to think he’s got this easily. The media are paid so much for a reason. Their palinization is extraordinarily effective.
The main thing is the Electoral College and Clinton has that sewed up because there are so many blue states.
Millions of Trump supporters in CA, and we might as well not even register to vote.
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