I really didn’t believe it (liberal bias in the news I consume), and I’m still having trouble with it. But all I’ve heard for the last 4 years was how Hillary was going to be our president, and how it was a done deal. Then I kept hearing how much Trump was a joke and not going to win. And now all I hear is how shocked everyone is that she didn’t win.
Its clear that more then half of the population doesn’t feel this way, but shock, disappointment and tears are really all I’m getting from the news I’m seeing. People are numbly walking through the halls muttering how much they can’t believe it.
Yet, more than half the people and the states preferred Trump to Hillary. Its odd that this preference percentage is not really emphasized and it seems to ‘everyone’ that somehow some other agency other than a majority of the American people has forced this decision on us.
I didn’t vote for him, but I’m a bit surprised that everyone here and elsewhere is so shocked and surprised by the outcome. The polls, and media I’ve been privy to really missed the mark…I believe the election, I didn’t believe the accusations of there being a liberal media bias…I think I was wrong.
The media thought that Hillary would win because that’s what the polls told them, not because of media bias. Now I’m not totally clear on why the polls were so wrong, but a few days ago, the NYT had her likelihood of winning at 85% (down from 93% before Comey released his statement about the email on Anthony Weiner’s computer).
The “liberal media bias” had nothing to go by but the polls, and there are dozens of them, and they all used recognized scientific methodology, and as far as I know, not a single one of them came up with a different result.
By the way, the last figures I saw this morning showed the total vote about 150,000 higher for Hillary than for Trump. So, the majority of the voters, as the polls predicted, DID vote for her.
It could have been because 15% of voters who had voted in previous years did not vote this year. Whether or not people vote might be more likely to be an unpredictable variable, as people make spur of the moment decisions about that. This was the firsts election in which a clear majority considered both candidates totally unacceptable, and that might be a sentiment that the pollsters have no model for, at least in countries that purport to be democratic…
Counterpunch which bills itself as “The Fearless Voice of the American Left Since 1993” has no time for either of the major parties and offers a different view of world affairs. They have repeatedly discussed the media bias in favor of Clinton.
In the linked piece “The Cataclysm: Notes on Election Day and the Politics of Hubris” editor Jeffrey St. Clair notes:
I brought this up in one of my first posts on this election 12 months ago.
About 1/3rd of the US electorate reliably votes D for president.
About 1/3rd of the US electorate reliably votes R for president.
About 1/3rd of the US electorate reliably doesn’t bother to vote for president.
Most years there’s a small difference of just a few percent between the Ds and the Rs. If a decent chunk of the typical no-voters ever bother to vote, and choose to vote more one way than the other, they can totally swamp the D or R lean of the every-time voters.
IOW, this “silent minority” is the biggest source of leverage in the election. And the team which successfully motivates this group will win every time.
In 2004 Obama energized a lot on perennial non-voters to his side. McCain didn’t. Result: Obama blew McCain out of the water.
In 2016 Trump energized a lot on perennial non-voters to his side. He also energized a bunch of perennial non-voters against his side. Clinton pretty much didn’t. Result: The total non-voter effect broke a bit for Trump.
As we see, Clinton probably slightly won the popular vote but thoroughly lost the EC. Which is all about the inherent reality that rural state voters are 1.2x - 1.5x as powerful as urban state voters per capita. They’re not more numerous. Their votes just count extra.
In the end, the polling process has to leave 1/3rd of the electorate out of their estimates. because 1/3rd of them usually don’t vote. Picking which third to ignore is hard. And harder when the election contains novel features. Which this one certainly did in spades.
Yeah, I tried to word it to implicitly include the electoral college. That was implied in the phrase you cut out, but admittedly was an awkward way to state it.
Yes, but that is mostly concentratedon the coasts and along the border with Mexico, which have a larger population. The “flyover nation” went for Trump.
Polls are only as valid as their samples. Random samples which are representative of the whole are required for best validity. This is all the more important when your sample is small.
So how do you know if your sample is representative of the whole group? The pollsters ask demographic data and then normalize the poll results, in essence adjusting the results in an effort make their sample be representative of the whole.
And what is the whole that the sample should represent? All adults? All adult American citizens? All registered voters? All likely voters? Each give a slightly different adjustment.
In the end several polls seemed to have adjusted their polls in assumption that the whole group they should try to demographically emulate is the demographics of the turnout in 2012. And so the polls were built on the assumption that the turnout of 2016 would reflect heavier turnout from the African American and youth vote than had historically been normal.
I’ve not bothered to search for the thread, but quite recently my ignorance was fought as to the biased nature of the American press. In short, the American press is actually known for its bias, with different papers and TV channels having different biases. Fox is the obvious example.
One reason the polls were so wrong is that so many people won’t answer their phone any more. And one reason for that is all the telephone solicitations and other junk calls we all get. Maybe someone could figure out a way to pay us, even just a nickel, to answer the phone. This would make polling much more expensive, but it would certainly cut down on telephone sweat shops.
I am not convinced that the election was not stolen. By voter suppression in NC, PA, OH. The Republicans went all out to prevent the wrong kind of people from voting. And its gonna get worse as they tighten their grips on the state houses. And the Republican supreme court will smile benevolently on all this.
It’s not unusual for the polls to be off this much. Trump overperformed the polls by about 3%; last time Obama overperformed by 2.7%. Polls were also off by more than 3% in 1996 and 2000.