Polls are not capturing the intent of the US voter correctly. Support for Donald Trump is massively underestimated by the polls, just like the polls got the Brexit vote and the Colombian vote on peace accords wrong.
How so? How is it the polls are not capturing the intent of the US voter? Trump and his followers didn't have a problem with those polls when they were showing him winning or gaining ground. Trump boasted about them at every opportunity. Every Trump rally began with Trump boasting about his polling numbers. But now that the Polls are indicating Trump is losing, suddenly the very same polls he has boasted about for more than a year become inaccurate. Why? What changed other than Trump's ranking in the polling?
@robertfsiegmund is just repeating Trump's campaign story. But it appears to be rooted more in hope than fact or reason. The Trump campaign doesn't appear to have anything to back it up other than anecdotal stories about people they have seen on the campaign trail.
@voiceofman I was posing the question to the originator, not you. Perhaps I'm a bit sloppy but I tend to only reply to someone else's comment to a forecast if I also tag that individual commenter.
As I explained in my original comment this is based on a series of recent elections where polls got the voter intentions wrong 1) Brexit vote in the UK 2) Peace accords vote in Colombia 3) 2 rounds of the Austrian presidential elections. In all these cases the polls where wrong by up to 10 percentage points. The reason behind is that right-wing or nationalist voters tend not to either answer to polls or when polled do not give their polling intentions thruthfully. And, no I am not linked to the Trump campaign. I am an Austrian citizen living in Switzerland and as such am not eligible to vote in the USA and therefore have no "skin in the game" as N. N. Taleb ("The Black Swan") would put it.
US polling isn't like Brexit nor the peace accords vote in Columbia. US polling has a long history of getting it right. It's not like the America hasn't had a right wing, because it has. It has had a very active right wing for a very long time. The problem American right wingers have is that they are a shrinking demographic within the US; with every passing year there are fewer and fewer of them as a percent of the electorate. So it's a mistake to compare US presidential polling to polling in other countries on other issues.
This isn't new. Last presidential cycle when polling showed Republicans losing we saw similar claims that the polling wasn't accurate. Republicans even went so far as to create their own polling which showed Republicans always win. Well, Republicans didn't win. The mainstream polling was correct, and that's why Obama is currently living in the White House.
Thanks for your explanation. I don't have links immediately at hand, but I believe there has been some US press (and polling, perhaps 538) coverage related to whether there are shy Trump supporters. Similar to instances of US voter fraud, if they exist, the numbers are very small. (Agree though that Brexit, et al are possibly significant indicators of forces that can't be ignored.)
I am not as convinced as you are by the accuracy of US polling. Polling in the UK and Austria for instance (the two other examples I have cited) was also considered to be accurate until recently. Recent grass-roots right wing movements such as the UK Leave campaign have consistently been understated by pollsters. Thats why I allow myself to give a contrarian opinion here, especially as someone who has no skin in the game.
I think we all have skin in the game whether we live in the US or not. We all have a stake in global events, and the US election is certainly an event with global impact. Given the US represents a quarter of global economic activity and whose leader could destroy the world in a fit of madness, we all have a stake in the US election.
Polls are not capturing the intent of the US voter correctly. Support for Donald Trump is massively underestimated by the polls, just like the polls got the Brexit vote and the Colombian vote on peace accords wrong.
How so? How is it the polls are not capturing the intent of the US voter? Trump and his followers didn't have a problem with those polls when they were showing him winning or gaining ground. Trump boasted about them at every opportunity. Every Trump rally began with Trump boasting about his polling numbers. But now that the Polls are indicating Trump is losing, suddenly the very same polls he has boasted about for more than a year become inaccurate. Why? What changed other than Trump's ranking in the polling?
I would be interested in better understanding why you think the 538 analysis might be wrong. Thanks.
@dowser, Are you referring to me or to @robertfsiegmund? I have no issues with 538 analysis. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
@robertfsiegmund is just repeating Trump's campaign story. But it appears to be rooted more in hope than fact or reason. The Trump campaign doesn't appear to have anything to back it up other than anecdotal stories about people they have seen on the campaign trail.
@voiceofman I was posing the question to the originator, not you. Perhaps I'm a bit sloppy but I tend to only reply to someone else's comment to a forecast if I also tag that individual commenter.
As I explained in my original comment this is based on a series of recent elections where polls got the voter intentions wrong 1) Brexit vote in the UK 2) Peace accords vote in Colombia 3) 2 rounds of the Austrian presidential elections. In all these cases the polls where wrong by up to 10 percentage points. The reason behind is that right-wing or nationalist voters tend not to either answer to polls or when polled do not give their polling intentions thruthfully. And, no I am not linked to the Trump campaign. I am an Austrian citizen living in Switzerland and as such am not eligible to vote in the USA and therefore have no "skin in the game" as N. N. Taleb ("The Black Swan") would put it.
US polling isn't like Brexit nor the peace accords vote in Columbia. US polling has a long history of getting it right. It's not like the America hasn't had a right wing, because it has. It has had a very active right wing for a very long time. The problem American right wingers have is that they are a shrinking demographic within the US; with every passing year there are fewer and fewer of them as a percent of the electorate. So it's a mistake to compare US presidential polling to polling in other countries on other issues.
This isn't new. Last presidential cycle when polling showed Republicans losing we saw similar claims that the polling wasn't accurate. Republicans even went so far as to create their own polling which showed Republicans always win. Well, Republicans didn't win. The mainstream polling was correct, and that's why Obama is currently living in the White House.
Thanks for your explanation. I don't have links immediately at hand, but I believe there has been some US press (and polling, perhaps 538) coverage related to whether there are shy Trump supporters. Similar to instances of US voter fraud, if they exist, the numbers are very small. (Agree though that Brexit, et al are possibly significant indicators of forces that can't be ignored.)
I am not as convinced as you are by the accuracy of US polling. Polling in the UK and Austria for instance (the two other examples I have cited) was also considered to be accurate until recently. Recent grass-roots right wing movements such as the UK Leave campaign have consistently been understated by pollsters. Thats why I allow myself to give a contrarian opinion here, especially as someone who has no skin in the game.
I think we all have skin in the game whether we live in the US or not. We all have a stake in global events, and the US election is certainly an event with global impact. Given the US represents a quarter of global economic activity and whose leader could destroy the world in a fit of madness, we all have a stake in the US election.