Blog 5: Polling

Political polls takeover the media predicting, based on public opinion, which candidate will prevail and win whatever election. Political polls in the 2016 presidential race were heavily relied upon, and in doing so it downplayed the actual following President Donald Trump had. Polls are susceptible to error and that can be accounted for, however there were many glaring errors that caused Trump to completely blindside the Clinton campaign as well as stun the nation.

I remember that on Election Day all of the news sources showed that all of the polling data was in favor of Hilary Clinton’s success. I wasn’t going to even watch the coverage of the election results because of the certainty that was assumed from the data on which the next president would be. It was not until the realization that this race was unexpectedly far from over that I tuned in. I along with the assumption of many others was stunned, how could something that was seen as so definite be so wrong?

The polls in regards to Donald Trump were successful on some fronts. They were correct in the showing his lack of support compared to Clinton in the weeks leading up to the election, however it did not account for the large swing in support the days and even hours leading up to the election. Something that was also interesting in this year’s election was that the losing candidate won the popular vote. There were more swing states that Trump won instead of Clinton, which caused the results that ensued. The democrats had a major issue with attendance at the polls and a lot of that could have been because of the thought of having the presidential race in the bag so to speak.

In my opinion polling can not get much better especially in regards to the polling done on the 2016 presidential election. It is not completely the polls fault in the inaccurate prediction of the election outcome. It was recorded that in this election there were 12% of undecided and late-decided voters in the electoral compared to the 3% of voters in 2012. Those who were undecided swayed more toward Trump rather than in support of Clinton, which can cause a huge (*huge said in voice of Donald Trump) marginal and misleading gap in the polls. The presidential polls for 2016 did not ask the wrong questions, but rather it was misguided by the unknown factors of polling others such as sample size and dishonesty among polltakers. Clinton was also favored in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania but at the last second flipped in support of Trump and cost her some crucial Electoral College votes.

If I were to conduct a political poll to better understand Donald Trump’s chances and impressions on the public I would ask similar questions, but I would gage a larger portion of the population. Sample sizes matter in how much trust you can put into the results. The questions that are asked also matters, because the right kind of questions could reveal more to pollsters than just what the question is asking. I do not blame the polls for the shocking reality in the presidential results; I more so blame the public for buying into the polls as their inherent truth.

The polls had a large emphasis put on them in this election cycle, like I said Clinton was the assumed president. I know many people who avoided voting or went out of their way to vote depending on if their desired candidate was winning or losing in the polls. By placing such an emphasis on the polls we buy into its reality. Polls should not dictate as to whether or not you participate in the democratic process. Polls provide nothing on the candidate’s platform so I don’t see the need for them; it only perpetuates excuses to be a lemming by attaching to the popular candidate and making your decision based off of others.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-trump-we-asked-pollsters-why/