# Why have polls been so wrong lately, and why are they always underestimating the far right **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 4, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845 "2016-12-04T18:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/21 "2016-12-04T22:45:44Z")
Who says the Far Right was underestimated? And who says Donald Trump is part of the Far Right? Worth noting: Donald Trump won Louisiana handily, but David Duke barely showed up in the Louisiana Senate race. He got a mere 3% of the vote. Meaning only a minuscule percentage of Trump’s voters were KKK friendly. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/22 "2016-12-04T23:21:43Z")
> [@](#): > > And who says Donald Trump is part of the Far Right? That’s traditionally where fascism is placed on the political spectrum, though admittedly the spectrum is rather distorted at the extremes. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/23 "2016-12-04T23:35:01Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > 538 claimed 21.1% chance Trump would win MI, 16.5% WI, 23.0% PA. Multiply those 3 numbers together and there is a 0.8% chance Trump would win the three states of WI, MI, PA. But Trump won them. So, if there’s a 10% chance of snow on Christmas day in Edinburgh, a 10% chance of snow on Christmas day in Glasgow and an 8% chance of snow on Christmas day in Carlisle there’s less than a 1 in 1000 chance of it snowing in all three cities, right? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/24 "2016-12-04T23:42:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That’s traditionally where fascism is placed on the political spectrum, though admittedly the spectrum is rather distorted at the extremes. Again, who says Trump is a fascist? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/25 "2016-12-05T00:15:04Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Again, who says Trump is a fascist? People who were actually paying attention the last two years? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/26 "2016-12-05T01:10:00Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Again, who says Trump is a fascist? Of course he is a facist, everyone with an R after their name is a fascist. Just because trump seems to have flipped a coin to decide which party he would be in doesn’t mean he isn’t Hitler’s reincarnation… ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/27 "2016-12-05T01:14:41Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Right. This is what Nate Silver himself has said. The polls were off by a normal amount, around 3%, just like last time. Actually, it looks like they were off nationally by only about 1-2%, but as you noted, much larger discrepancies on a state level: they tended to underestimate Trump’s support in states with a larger fraction of white non-college educated voters (and underestimate Hillary’s support in states with a smaller fraction of white non-college educated voters): [Pollsters Probably Didn’t Talk To Enough White Voters Without College Degrees | FiveThirtyEight](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/pollsters-probably-didnt-talk-to-enough-white-voters-without-college-degrees/) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/28 "2016-12-05T01:18:49Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Of course he is a facist, everyone with an R after their name is a fascist. Cite for people here making that latter claim? I don’t recall any widespread calls that Romney was a fascist or George W was a fascist. Heck, even Paul Ryan went so far as noting that Trump’s statement about the judge with Mexican heritage was the “textbook definition of a racist comment”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/29 "2016-12-05T01:23:29Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > 538 claimed 21.1% chance Trump would win MI, 16.5% WI, 23.0% PA. Multiply those 3 numbers together and there is a 0.8% chance Trump would win the three states of WI, MI, PA. But Trump won them. Please, please, please read the parts of 538 where they explain how their model works. How you describe it is NOT how it works. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/30 "2016-12-05T03:58:32Z")
The broader version of the Bradley Effect might be stated as, “Whatever is embarrassing or socially taboo, will probably have more supporters in private/secret than are willing to admit it to a pollster.” So the actual % of people who are white supremacists will probably exceed the stated polling/survey percentage. Same for Le Pen supporters, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/31 "2016-12-05T10:39:02Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Brexit in the UK wasn’t predicted by the polls. Brexit had nothing to do with the far right. UKIP, the allegedly far-right party at the centre of Brexit, is actually looking to replace Labour, not the Tories. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/32 "2016-12-05T12:22:27Z")
I think it’s all in how they decide to weight the various demographics. Typically, Republican voters show up in force for every election, Democrats only in presidential years when it’s someone they like and the weather is decent and there’s nothing much to watch on television. Hillary was liked well enough by Democratic stalwarts like me, but didn’t excite the black and Hispanic vote. Those that came out voted for her, but not enough did. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/33 "2016-12-05T12:27:32Z")
I know the black vote was down significantly, but wasn’t the Latino vote higher than normal? Problem is, more of it went for Trump than expected. That part was probably a polling miss, although some say the exit polls are wrong instead. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/34 "2016-12-05T13:34:22Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Who says the Far Right was underestimated? And who says Donald Trump is part of the Far Right? > > Worth noting: Donald Trump won Louisiana handily, but David Duke barely showed up in the Louisiana Senate race. He got a mere 3% of the vote. > > Meaning only a minuscule percentage of Trump’s voters were KKK friendly. I think there are legitimate questions about whether ethno-nationalist movements _in general_ belong on the ‘far right’. Jobbik in Hungary and Law & Justice in Poland are _economically_ to the left of their main opponents, for example: some of the ethno-nationalist candidates in Europe and Australia are quite good on economy / environment issues, and the assumption among some liberals that hostility to mass immigration, etc., puts you on the ‘right’ leads to hilarious conclusions like, for example, describing the Socialist general who recently won the Bulgarian presidency as ‘far right’. There is no question that _Donald Trump_ is hard, hard right though: on every issue where there’s a distinct left-right spectrum (the environment, race relations, the economy, foreign policy, etc.) he lines up either with the Republican Party or is more extreme than the Republican consensus. There’s nothing remotely left leaning about him. I thought there might be at one point- but I was disappointed, and so will all the people who hoped he would bring jobs back, usher in a non-interventionist foreign policy, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/35 "2016-12-05T16:27:13Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > 538 claimed 21.1% chance Trump would win MI, 16.5% WI, 23.0% PA. Multiply those 3 numbers together and there is a 0.8% chance Trump would win the three states of WI, MI, PA. But Trump won them. Not to pile on, but to explain rather than just bash, you are assuming the outcomes are independent events in which case that calculation would be correct. But they are actually highly correlated events, just as we’d realize if only hearing the news of a Trump victory in WI that things were probably not going according to plan elsewhere for Clinton. Without getting onto a math tangent, the more reasonable back of envelope calc would have been estimated Trump’s chance of winning all three at not much less than the lowest chance of winning any of them. So say Trump had a teens % chance of winning all three per 538. That’s still pretty low. However as said many times before the election, the 538 %'s simply can’t be verified. There aren’t anywhere near enough trials to prove out at each point 5% really means 5, 10 really 10, 15 really 15 and so on. All we know, as I said before the election, is that in practical PR terms Nate Silver would have relatively less egg on his face if Trump won than most other prognosticators. I think there is a bigger problem with polling now than previously. What combination of technological, social and actually political changes has caused it is harder to say. One starting point on the political side might be to try to understand the movements/candidates which polls have underestimated. They are not in general ‘far right’. Trump certainly isn’t, in any sense other that just saying ‘far X’ as a slogan to try to get people not to vote for somebody or something, ‘far’ as ‘bad’. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/36 "2016-12-05T17:16:14Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Cite for people here making that latter claim? I don’t recall any widespread calls that Romney was a fascist or George W was a fascist. > > Heck, even Paul Ryan went so far as noting that Trump’s statement about the judge with Mexican heritage was the “textbook definition of a racist comment”. Really? just do a search for Romney is hitler or Bush is hitler ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/37 "2016-12-05T17:42:50Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The broader version of the Bradley Effect might be stated as, “Whatever is embarrassing or socially taboo, will probably have more supporters in private/secret than are willing to admit it to a pollster.” But, again, this doesn’t appear to be the case. People seemed no more enthusiastic to vote for Donald Trump than they did for Mitt Romney - I think he’s still behind Romney in total votes, in a country with a few more people in it - and the polling error was within normal random chance. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/38 "2016-12-05T17:47:11Z")
They lie to pollsters…then complain that the polls aren’t accurate. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/39 "2016-12-05T18:15:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 538 doesn’t use the results of _other_ polling organizations. That seems to imply that 538 themselves are a polling organization. They’re not, and they’ve never pretended to be. > > But it’s worth noting that 538’s methodology took into account that the pollsters could be wrong. They account for known systematic errors by assigning a house effect to each pollster. They account for random errors by aggregating all of the polls, and weighting them by quality. And they even, to the extent possible, account for unknown systematic errors, by assigning appropriately-large error bars to their forecasts. That last reflects what happened: 538 assigned a small but nonzero probability to Trump winning, based on a small but nonzero probability that there was an unknown systematic error. As it turns out, that small probability came through (as they sometimes do), and Trump won. _Which was an anticipated possibility_. FiveThirtyEight is a polling aggregation website. “Aggregation” as in collecting parts or units into a mass or whole. FiveThirtyEight collects the results of other polling organizations to form the basis of 538’s predictions. > **[Definition of AGGREGATION](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggregation)** > > a group, body, or mass composed of many distinct parts or individuals; the collecting of units or parts into a mass or whole; the condition of being so collected… See the full definition \*FiveThirtyEight, sometimes referred to as 538, is a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college, was founded on March 7, 2008, as a polling aggregation website with a blog created by analyst Nate Silver. …During the U.S. presidential primaries and United States general election of 2008 the site compiled polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver’s experience in baseball sabermetrics to “balance out the polls with comparative demographic data.” Silver weighted “each poll based on the pollster’s historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll”. Weighting of polls …One unique aspect of the site is Silver’s efforts to rank pollsters by accuracy, weight their polls accordingly, and then supplement those polls with his own electoral projections based on demographics and prior voting patterns. “I did think there was room for a more sophisticated way of handling these things,” Silver said. …At base Silver’s method is similar to other analysts’ approaches to taking advantage of the multiple polls that are conducted within each state: he averaged the polling results. …On June 16, 2010, Silver announced on his blog that he is willing to give all pollsters who he had included in his rating a list of their polls that he had in his archive, along with the key information that he used (poll marginals, sample size, dates of administration); and he encouraged the pollsters to examine the lists and the results to compare them with the pollster’s own record and make corrections.[\* > **[FiveThirtyEight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiveThirtyEight)** > > 538, originally rendered as FiveThirtyEight, is an American website that focused on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. Founder Nate Silver left in 2023, taking the rights to his forecasting model with him to his website Silver Bulletin. 538's new owner Disney hired G. Elliott Morris to develop a new model. On September 18, 2023, the original website domain at fivethirtyeight.com was closed, and web traffic became redirected to A The website, wh... _Poll Aggregator - A poll aggregator is a web site that predicts upcoming U.S. federal elections by gathering and averaging pre-election polls published by others. The site predicts the winner of a presidential election and post-election composition of the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as showing who is currently ahead where and by how much._ > **[Poll aggregator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_aggregator)** > > A poll aggregator is an entity that tracks and aggregates, often but not exclusively by averaging, individual polls conducted by different organizations in order to gauge public sentiment on key civic issues such as the approval rating of a major political figure (e.g., president, prime minister, monarch, governor, lawmaker, etc.), or legislative body; or to measure likely public support for an individual candidate or political party in an upcoming election. > A poll aggregator may also forecast ... ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845/40 "2016-12-05T18:18:10Z")
So where there any Congressional, Senatorial, or Gubernatorial polls that were as wildly inaccurate as the Presidential race? If not, why not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-polls-been-so-wrong-lately-and-why-are-they-always-underestimating-the-far-right/773845.md?page=3)