JLP. reposted this
Campaigns | Communication | Insights. Former Head of Campaign Communications at The Conservative Party
🇺🇸 How badly wrong did the pollsters get the US Presidential election? 👇 In fairness to the pollsters, I'm really not convinced they did get the election dramatically wrong. 📈 Trump's vote was slightly understated (again) by most pollsters. But when you looked at the aggregate of the most reputable pollsters throughout October, they pointed to a statistical tie for the popular vote, but a slight lead for Trump in most or all swing states. Thus, I tentatively said a week before the election it looked as though Trump had a lead in the electoral college. 👏 The election was relatively close in terms of margin of error. But particular hat tip to Atlas Polls and JLP. for being the ones who look to have got closest to the final result. I'm sure it takes courage to stand behind your research and data analysis when others are hedging a different way. 📢 There can be criticism that pollsters overall still slightly underestimated Republican support once again. But when the margins are small, differences are exaggerated. But let's remember what polls can and can't do. They CAN give a general, and hopefully relatively accurate, snapshot indication of public sentiment, the issues people care most about, and public opinion direction of travel. They CANNOT give an absolute prediction of the decision taken by every single one of millions of people on a given day. 🙌 So let's give the pollsters a break. And perhaps a bit of appreciation for the difficult, and highly scrutinised, work they do. 🌦 After all, do weather forecasters get such flack when it's rained today after telling you there's a 70% chance of sunshine? BBC News - Did the US election polls fail? - BBC News https://lnkd.in/e-sHyeTt