# What's the most wrong state/national polling has ever been? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 24, 2016, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272 "2016-06-24T22:49:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/21 "2016-06-27T17:55:43Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Has that ever happened? What’s the closest it’s gotten to happening? Because I think that if Trump does win, or even comes close to winning, we’ll see it ahead of time in the polls, perhaps very far ahead. Am I wrong here? In the [2014 Senate Election in Arkansas](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1IAY3VMIbyMJ:www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/ar/arkansas_senate_cotton_vs_pryor-4049.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us), poll showed Republican Tom Cotton ahead of Democrat Mark Pryor by only a singled-digit amount, but on election day Cotton mopped the floor with Pryor by a 17-point margin. Similar things happened in [Iowa](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fWHGOH7Jm68J:www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/ia/iowa_senate_ernst_vs_braley-3990.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us), [Kansas](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Dq7ZEGY9sr0J:www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/ks/kansas_senate_roberts_vs_orman-5216.html+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us), and some other states: the polls showed a statistical dead heat, but the Republican candidate won in a blow-out. Good article here on _[Why Polls Don’t Work](http://reason.com/archives/2016/01/14/why-polls-dont-work)._ Nevertheless, I am confident that Trump will lose to Hillary in November. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/22 "2016-06-27T21:45:00Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Clinton proved in the primaries that polls don’t matter? > > Well, they don’t matter so much if you control who counts the actual votes. > > People don’t like hearing it, but it is relatively easy to steal an election in a primary compared to a caucus. I don’t know if that happened, but there actually are somewhat credible accusations of conspiracy in a couple of major population centers. 😕 Bah. I mean, yes, caucuses always have issues but then you should know that going in. And the underdogs always do well in them, as Sanders and Obama showed. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/23 "2016-06-27T21:50:43Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > A big problem with thinking Hillary somehow outperformed polling (and it’s the first part in a long series of “deeply held beliefs” you must have to buy into the Hillary stole the primary conspiracy theory) is a highly selective remembrance of the aggregate polling data. The biggest actual result that aggregate polling got wrong versus the actual results, in the Democratic primaries, was Michigan–and that error favored Sanders, as Hillary was projected as having something like a 90% chance of winning a majority of the Michigan votes, and by something like a 10% margin. > > The rest of the aggregate polling on state campaigns was fairly close, for primaries. Caucuses had a greater margin of error but they’ve always been that way–and caucuses again, actually favored Bernie more than Hillary. > > The big things that I saw happening during the campaign that I think contributed to Bernie fans confusion was they would often conflate national polls with state polls. And they would also conflate single-off polling results with aggregate poll numbers. And they would not pay attention to the pollster. Bernie fans _hated_ FiveThirtyEight and called it a Hillary shill site–because FiveThirtyEight kept predicting Bernie defeats, and got them right essentially every time other than Michigan (at least for primaries.) > However, to get back to this year’s election–you can’t take that shit that happens constantly and is mostly just evidence of really poorly ran elections and claim that is any kind of evidence of fraud. Some of the most prominent examples that have come out in the Democratic primary have actually been ones that likely hurt Hillary. Like the infamous voter purge not long before the election in Brooklyn, that was a heavy Hillary district, so it’s more likely than not those voters would’ve helped her, not hurt her. [Plus there’s not been any real evidence most of those voters purged had not, in fact, moved, died, or been otherwise validly removed–removal required you to miss a few consecutive elections and most people that normally vote who miss a few consecutive elections have a reason for doing so, like no longer being alive or no longer living in the precinct.] All of these are good points. Dudes really have to remember that Caucuses are the least fair and Democratic way of running things- and without them Bernie would have never had a chance. The “System” heavily favored Bernie. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/24 "2016-06-28T22:46:40Z")
I didn’t think the primaries were stolen until I started seeing reports that the primaries were stolen. This is from election workers in Chicago: > **[Election Fraud Proven at Audit by Chicago BOE - flipped precinct by 18pts...](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518460/-Election-Fraud-Proven-at-Audit-by-Chicago-BOE-flipped-precinct-by-18pts-from-Bernie-to-Hillary)** > > Full hearing: > > > > Outrageous > > In one example noted during video, 21 Bernie votes were erased and 49 Hillary votes added to audit tally in order to match machine count. In this one precinct, this change from the actual results accounted for... > [@](#): > > Here is your smoking gun. The machine tally does not match the hand count tally. The official, instead of doing anything about that, simply adjusts her hand count to match the machine. THAT IS FRAUD. Not a mistake, not a slip up, not a cock up, not lazy, not anything other than FRAUD. There are so many cases of election fraud in Chicago that when I googled “chicago poll workers election fraud,” Google kept showing me old cases. I changed it to “chicago poll workers election fraud 2016 audit” to find the story. I guess most media outlets, even the lefty ones, are avoiding this subject. But it really happened. Also, the New York primary was hinky, with great numbers of registered Democrats being told they weren’t. [“The Story of the Great Brooklyn Voter Purge Keeps Getting Weirder”](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/new-york-primary-voter-purge) - Mother Jones Polling is more pro-Sanders than you’d expect if we’re undersampling cell phones. Why? [This rather biased pro-Sanders Reddit link](https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4g3x5h/investigative_journalism_why_bernie_may_have/) discusses the problem. [A large number of California ballots remain uncounted even today.](http://www.inquisitr.com/3235926/with-over-600000-ballots-to-count-bernie-closes-gap-in-california-to-8-7-percent-and-counting/) Democratic voters are in rebellion, and we’re told there’s nothing to see, move along. If we can prove fraud, can Hillary, and nominate Bernie, the Democrats still have a chance in the general. But if not, then what are the Dems running on? “We’re too powerful for your vote to count”?! Great, wonderful. That means I can stay home. You seem to think you can win without my vote and the votes of other progressives, so why would I show up? _But can you even steal the general?_ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/25 "2016-06-28T22:49:57Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I didn’t think the primaries were stolen until I started seeing reports that the primaries were stolen. This is from election workers in Chicago: > [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518460/-Election-Fraud-Proven-at-Audit-by-Chicago-BOE-flipped-precinct-by-18pts-from-Bernie-to-Hillary](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518460/-Election-Fraud-Proven-at-Audit-by-Chicago-BOE-flipped-precinct-by-18pts-from-Bernie-to-Hillary) > There are so many cases of election fraud in Chicago that when I googled “chicago poll workers election fraud,” Google kept showing me old cases. I changed it to “chicago poll workers election fraud 2016 audit” to find the story. > > I guess most media outlets, even the lefty ones, are avoiding this subject. But it really happened. > > Also, the New York primary was hinky, with great numbers of registered Democrats being told they weren’t. > [“The Story of the Great Brooklyn Voter Purge Keeps Getting Weirder”](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/new-york-primary-voter-purge) - Mother Jones > > Polling is more pro-Sanders than you’d expect if we’re undersampling cell phones. Why? [This rather biased pro-Sanders Reddit link](https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4g3x5h/investigative_journalism_why_bernie_may_have/) discusses the problem. > > [A large number of California ballots remain uncounted even today.](http://www.inquisitr.com/3235926/with-over-600000-ballots-to-count-bernie-closes-gap-in-california-to-8-7-percent-and-counting/) All of that added together would likely just give Hillary more votes. \*But even if all were for Bernie and multiplied by a thousand, Hillary would still have won. \* There is nothing more pathetic than a sore loser who claims the other guy cheated. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/26 "2016-06-28T23:29:44Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Democratic voters are in rebellion Considering the margins by which Clinton won, I see no evidence of this. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/27 "2016-06-29T00:25:33Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I guess most media outlets, even the lefty ones, are avoiding this subject. See: [The Democratic Primary Wasn’t Rigged](https://www.thenation.com/article/the-democratic-primary-wasnt-rigged/) ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_from\_CB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/278dde/32.png) [@Alex\_from\_CB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_from_CB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/28 "2016-06-29T00:58:05Z")
Bernie person says,…“Great, wonderful. That means I can stay home. You seem to think you can win without my vote and the votes of other progressives, so why would I show up?” This is the shockingly childish attitude of some Sanders people. Never thought I’d see any Sanders people have so little consideration for what’s best for their country. Regarding the discussion of primaries/caucuses… That last big Tuesday with New Jersey, California and some other states… I recall looking at the vote totals… Several hundred thousand votes or a million or 2 total votes with a great majority going to Clinton. California, several million… and was it Montana? One of those states without people… a caucus state… total votes caucused… about 150. Sanders gets 100, Clinton gets 50. Sanders wins 8 delegates. How undemocratic. And then Sanders cries like an infant about unfairness over Super delegates. I’ve followed and admired his career since he was a Congressman 20-30 years ago but have lost great respect for that man. There are some real poor rules in sports. Change them before the season starts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/29 "2016-06-29T02:11:26Z")
Just to defend most of the Bernie voters, we should take into account that the extreme Bern ones are a fringe part of the group. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/06/26/new-post-abc-poll-trumps-june-has-been-an-utter-disaster-in-every-way/?postshare=4551466949612925&tid=ss\_tw#comments](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/06/26/new-post-abc-poll-trumps-june-has-been-an-utter-disaster-in-every-way/?postshare=4551466949612925&tid=ss_tw#comments) > [@](#): > > In other good news for Clinton, Sanders voters are already coming around to supporting her. For weeks, Clinton supporters have groused about the disloyalty of Bernie Sanders’ supporters. And it is true that, in the last Post-ABC poll, Clinton only won 71 percent of Sanders voters. But despite the acrimony of the Democratic primary, \*\*81 percent of Sanders backers now support Clinton against Trump. > \*\* > **Only 8 percent of Sanders voters now support Trump, compared with 10 percent of all Republicans who support Clinton.** (Clinton die-hards should think twice before complaining about Sanders backers’ supposed foot-dragging. At this point in 2008, 22 percent of Clinton primary supporters said they would vote for John McCain in the fall, and 16 percent did so.). ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/30 "2016-06-29T02:20:25Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > … can Hillary… Yes, she can! 🙂 > [@](#): > > You seem to think you can win without my vote and the votes of other progressives, so why would I show up? … I think that people like you, who are alleging Trumptastic storylines, well ones that make Trump seem relatively rational really, are a lost cause, and fairly few. No, you do not represent the vote of very many progressives. You represent your own teeny tiny demographic. We can win without _you_. We will win the support of most progressives and most younger voters. But no not by pandering to the most extreme every desire of the few. Note that in current polls the circling of the wagons has only barely begun and Clinton is still leading nicely. One expects that as the grief process works through some additional former strong Sanders will end up supporting Clinton or voting against trump, and voting for a Congress that would allow Clinton to implement the progressive plans (even if they are not the exact progressive plans each progressive wants) she has promoted. You’ll pout instead. Fine. Sit in your corner by yourself throwing your nice little tantrum. The rest of us, inclusive of most progressives as well as old-fashioning liberals and even centrists, have the business of looking out for the best interest of this country and the world to take care of. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/31 "2016-06-29T02:22:14Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > See: > > [The Democratic Primary Wasn’t Rigged](https://www.thenation.com/article/the-democratic-primary-wasnt-rigged/) [del]It’s a shame to see the _Nation_ go over to the dark side. We have testimony from primary sources that it\* was\* rigged. To pretend otherwise is to lie and to insult our intelligence.[/del] ETA: No, that’s unfair. I really was where they are a little bit ago. But at some point you realize the pattern of behavior. Any one bit of corruption wouldn’t have turned it, but it was multiple state parties all over the country. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/32 "2016-06-29T02:32:44Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > [del]It’s a shame to see the _Nation_ go over to the dark side. > > We have testimony from primary sources that it\* was\* rigged. To pretend otherwise is to lie and to insult our intelligence.[/del] > > ETA: No, that’s unfair. I really was where they are a little bit ago. But at some point you realize the pattern of behavior. Any one bit of corruption wouldn’t have turned it, but it was multiple state parties all over the country. Seems to me that The Nation is more reasonable than some Bernie supporters that reach for conspiracy theories. [https://www.thenation.com/article/the-conspiracy-theory-that-the-clinton-campaign-stole-votes-makes-no-sense/](https://www.thenation.com/article/the-conspiracy-theory-that-the-clinton-campaign-stole-votes-makes-no-sense/) > [@](#): > > And once the internal logic of the theory falls apart, we’re left with Occam’s Razor: a handful of glitches and irregularities in an electoral system that produces them in abundance year after year. We have 50 voting systems, each with their own arcane rules. We have caucuses and primaries administered by volunteers, some of whom do dumb things. There are voter-ID laws that are designed to disenfranchise eligible voters, and registration deadlines that make no sense. > > It’s an unholy mess, but the snags it inevitably produces aren’t evidence of foul play. And as pointed out, the super majority of Bernie voters are also reasonable; Trump needs to be stopped, and while there is some opposition it is Clinton the one that should be supported now. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/33 "2016-06-29T03:07:48Z")
I mean the reality is this–when someone has bought into the “Hillary stole the election” conspiracy theory, it’s over. It’s like 9/11 trutherism, moon landing hoaxers etc. All the reason and evidence shows that the idea that the primaries were stolen in illegal election fraud by Hillary to be ludicrous, but no amount of evidence can ever convince them. When no amount of evidence can convince someone of something, they’ve crossed over into a matter of faith, and there’s no sense in arguing with those. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/34 "2016-06-29T03:20:13Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > [del]It’s a shame to see the _Nation_ go over to the dark side. > > We have testimony from primary sources that it\* was\* rigged. To pretend otherwise is to lie and to insult our intelligence.[/del] > > ETA: No, that’s unfair. I really was where they are a little bit ago. But at some point you realize the pattern of behavior. Any one bit of corruption wouldn’t have turned it, but it was multiple state parties all over the country. **Most of which helped Bernie.** Clinton won Ca by 60%- uncounted votes would just make it worse. Brooklyn was heavily Hillary. And it wasn’t _“corruption”,_ it was _“irregularities”._ Which occur every election and except for Bush vs Gore never make any real difference. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/35 "2016-06-29T04:39:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > **Most of which helped Bernie.** Clinton won Ca by 60%- uncounted votes would just make it worse. Brooklyn was heavily Hillary. > > And it wasn’t _“corruption”,_ it was _“irregularities”._ Which occur every election and except for Bush vs Gore never make any real difference. Those irregularities that are impossible to completely stamp out are why an author of an article or book or something that I read said the actual result in Bush v Gore and in Franken’s election should have been a tie. I don’t remember if he advocated flipping a coin or retrying or what, but his main thrust was that it was ridiculous to go through all the ballots looking for errors, when the errors would be overwhelmed by a larger number of errors that led to ballots not even being cast or the person marking the wrong box (like in Florida’s butterfly ballet). At the end of the day, it may be the only thing you can do, but it’s not a particularly statistically rigorous way of deciding an election and there should be some other sort of mechanism in place to deal with the cases when the margin of victory is smaller than the known errors from methodological flaws. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/36 "2016-06-29T12:49:21Z")
If you have an insurgency against an established candidate, and there is a large undecided bloc right up to the election, historically, the bloc tends to break largely for the insurgent. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/37 "2016-06-29T13:57:07Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Well it depends on how big that lead is and how much confidence one has that the likely voter screen apply to a potentially atypical election. > > Polls are [not always perfect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_U.S._Presidential_elections). > > Final 2008 polls missed the spread by 4% (Obama won by 7 instead of 11%). Did all the polls predict Obama would win by 11? Which polls are we talking about? I went to 538’s final post before the 2008 election. According to that post, the nationwide polls had Obama winning by about… seven points. So I’m not sure where your 11 comes from. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/38 "2016-06-29T14:27:59Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > If you have an insurgency against an established candidate, and there is a large undecided bloc right up to the election, historically, the bloc tends to break largely for the insurgent. Do you have a cite for this? It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s that this statement involves a lot of interpretation which makes it difficult to falsify. Who qualifies as an insurgent, who is “an established candidate”? How large an undecided bloc is “large”? I mean, Trump probably qualifies as an example of what you’re saying based on what he did in this year’s primaries, but Sanders was _clearly_ an insurgent fighting against a seriously establishment candidate, and he didn’t win the primaries or come particularly close. Were there enough “undecideds” to make the Sanders-Clinton race an exception to the general rule, or are we ruling this example out because the undecided bloc wasn’t large enough? Thinking about presidential elections in the last half-century or so, Goldwater was surely an insurgent (and didn’t win), George Wallace likewise (and likewise) four years later. George McGovern. maybe? He lost, too. Would we consider Carter an insurgent in 1976? He certainly ran against a Washington-insider incumbent on an anti-Washington platform. Reagan would qualify in 1980 (but John Anderson would qualify even more, and he didn’t win). We’re not considering Bill Clinton an insurgent in '92, are we? (The real insurgent that year was Perot.) I don’t know that we’ve had any race that is truly insurgent vs. established candidate since then. But again, what do we mean when we use these terms? It just seems very open to interpretation, is all, too easy to rule out examples of elections that broke late toward the establishment candidate by saying that the winner wasn’t \*really \*establishment or that the loser wasn’t \*truly \*insurgent or that the undecided bloc wasn’t large \*enough \*. So, I’d be curious about the source of your statement, if you have it. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272/39 "2016-06-29T14:43:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Did all the polls predict Obama would win by 11? Which polls are we talking about? > > I went to 538’s final post before the 2008 election. According to that post, the nationwide polls had Obama winning by about… seven points. So I’m not sure where your 11 comes from. From the source linked … which admittedly is a wikipedia article. Last number reported 53 to 42. My apologies for trusting wiki, but it did report all the elections with polls and final tallies. Apparently I gave up accuracy for convenience. RCP actually reports the very last poll as Obama + and their rolling average as an amazingly on the money 7.6, within 0.3 of the actual. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-wrong-state-national-polling-has-ever-been/758272.md?page=1)