Winners and Losers From 2020 Election
According to this article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...cid=uxbndlbing
the polling industry is due for a major overhaul of their methodology.
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The polls
The polls got a battering after the 2016 election — in some ways unfairly, in my estimation. They missed in some crucial states, but overall (and nationally) they weren’t that bad, and the decisive states didn’t have much quality polling.
The polls in the 2020 election, though, have no such excuses. The missed especially badly in the Midwest (again) in Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin. But they also missed Florida by about five points and badly missed Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-Maine) clear win. Collins trailed in virtually every poll; as of now, she not only won, but she also avoided an instant runoff by taking more than 50 percent and leading Democrat Sara Gideon by more than eight points. Texas’s presidential race and the South Carolina Senate race also weren’t nearly as close as we were led to believe.
It’s time for a reckoning when it comes to how these poll are conducted. It’s difficult when political coalitions are changing, yes. But it’s getting to a point in which even leads that are outside the margin of error in many cases can’t be trusted.
All of this comes with the caveat, as in 2016, that national polls weren’t nearly so off. Biden led in them 51.8 percent to 43.4 percent, according to the final FiveThirtyEight poll average. Biden currently leads by about four points, and that’s expected to grow, especially with California always counting its votes late. The margins could also creep somewhat closer to the polls in key states, given most of the late-counted votes are friendly for Biden.
But the poll-doubters have been vindicated, to a significant degree. And any coverage in the future should reflect that increasing uncertainty.
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Personal Comment/Observation
I'm lousy at math - which probably explains why I have difficulty understanding how statistics work. (All those Greek letters confuse me.) This lack of comprehension and understanding probably explains why I've never been feared at the poker table.
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Be that as it may, I wonder if the real problem [with polling] is that - in really close elections with a sharply divided electorate - a poll needs a much larger sample size in order to obtain a more accurate result? Not being an expert on any of this, it just seems to me that a sample size of 1,076 registered voters (or "likely" voters) is woefully inadequate when it comes to predicting the behavior of a million (or several million) actual voters. (Is this what some commentators are referring to when they state that a certain demographic - such as Cuban-Americans in South Florida - were under sampled?)
Could this be the real problem?