Can we please stop with the "polls were wrong in 2016" narritive [View all]

[louis c]

I will concede that nearly everyone I spoke to thought Hillary would win in 2016 against Trump. But the polls were not wrong. The national polls had the race a slight Hillary popular vote win. She won by over 2 points. Were some of the state polls wrong? Yes, but by small percentage points, well within the margin of error. If there's anything that might make a poll wrong it's enthusiasm on one side or another in the actual voting. That may have happened within a few states, as older, first time voters without voting history appeared at their precincts. This wasn't an overwhelming number, but just enough to change the anticipated results in a handful of states. But remember, Hillary won the national vote by 3 million.

Right now, polls have Trump nearly 20 points under water. No fucking poll is 20 points off. Let's not start discounting very accurate information because of some misplace narrative. I'll give you a poll that was off. Virginia's Gubernatorial election in 2017. I left work that Tuesday, and the polls had that election one point either way. In the end, Nordstrom beat Gillespie by nearly 11 points. The same in Alabama and Pennsylvania, by a lesser extent. If the polls are missing anything this cycle, it's the commitment of Democratic voters and the enthusiasm of newly registered voters by our side. As a matter of fact, I think that's how Rasmussen has tilted their numbers to become the outlier. Rasmussen is using a "likely voters" model that tracks the voting history of 2014 and 2016 and is missing the huge resurgence in the enthusiasm of the Democratic coalition.