2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWisconsin 4-month run-up: Clinton leads by 6 points ... until Nov. 8:
Here's a shot of RCP's aggregate of polls (about 20, listed at the link), showing Clinton consistently leading Trump by around 6-7 points from August until the last poll on Nov. 6 -- including both Comey letters, which don't seem to have moved the needle perceptibly:
But on Nov. 8, Trump miraculously gained 8 points to win. So what happened?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5976.html
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)If polls were definitive, we wouldn't vote.
Tiggeroshii
(11,088 posts)That's like 3% in itself.
onecaliberal
(32,931 posts)ucrdem
(15,512 posts)All of them? These are the WI polls:
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)were wrong.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)There is NOTHING consistent between the pattern in all the run-up polls and the election night vote tally when for the first and only time Trump's numbers leapt ahead of the pack. And no catalyzing event either. Comey's dirty tricks didn't do zip it appears.
uponit7771
(90,367 posts)... some paper /sarcasm
You are 100% right and we were talking about this during breakfast that the digitized models should be able to pinpoint the exact anomalies by now... in the EXACT places were they got them wrong and be able to report.
But no, NONE of the freakin polsters have come out with a damn thing on their assumptions or variances NOTHING...
Its like they went all black and said screw you America... take DPuting and love him
uponit7771
(90,367 posts)... from the last century digitized got it ALL wrong cause .... well... screw you /sarcasm
radius777
(3,635 posts)they could be off by a little, but not by that much in so many states, conveniently in the ones he had to win.
All major prediction models (including Nate's) showed Hillary with comfortable odds of winning. The prediction markets did as well, was steady for months.
The polls in the primaries were mostly correct, and as Sam Wang stated, overstated Trump's margin slightly, and understated Hillary's margins slightly.
I just don't buy that somehow white voters who could care less about coming out in the primaries suddenly showed up on election day.
I also don't buy that PoC voters who came out for Hillary in the primary suddenly didn't care about showing up for her on election day.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,347 posts)... in key battleground states.
When I started looking at it from that point of view, I got the same uneasy feeling I had in 2004 when I read about all the anti-gay legislation that was on ballots all around the country.
Silver basically said her lead was easily overcome with polling assumption errors, if any.
I think the response here was "Fuck Nate Silver look at Sam Wang!!"
Hillary had terrible unfavorable numbers for a Presidential candidate going in.
I don't think the polls accounted for the white hot hatred repigs have for the Clintons. I was teasing my neighbor's dad (from rural downstate Illinois ) about upcoming Hillary Presidency and he went in to a Vince Foster Benghazi type tirade - I mean I knew he hated the Clintons but I had no idea he bought in to all that bullshit. I mentioned to my partner later that I hope I'm wrong but we may be in for a big fucking surprise. People like him would crawl over broken glass to get to the polls to vote against a Clinton.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)But it couldn't be brought up here without being labeled "concern troll".
Bob41213
(491 posts)Concern troll was nice...
LisaL
(44,974 posts)You have low odds of winning the lottery. Some people still do.
People here put way too much credence into polls and odds.
It was ridiculous.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,347 posts)I posted that to my Facebook friends after the Cubs won. I posted it with a *gulp* because the odds were better for Drumpf.
Cent Uygur also had a rant a couple days before the election that spelled out how a 35% chance was way too close for comfort. But he's persona non grata around these parts these days.
radius777
(3,635 posts)that were consistent and steady, especially after she won all three debates.
Comey's illegal actions threw the race into turmoil, along with voter suppression and who knows what else Trump/Stone/Rudy/Putin did to rig the game.
The election was stolen in broad daylight.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)MFM008
(19,823 posts)6 points or more off?
Something stinks to high heaven.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)A poll is several questions, but only a small handful are used to determine who is winning or losing. People who put these charts together looked at the wrong facts, figures and questions. Polls had her losing ground in MI, PA and WI about six weeks prior to election day.
The polls were not wrong, the people evaluating the information got it wrong.
cilla4progress
(24,783 posts)FfS?
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)the elections generally turned out as the polls said they would. So what's changed?
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)I wish I had a dollar for every time someone quoted a Nate Silver poll and I told them they were a moron, which was followed by an echo chamber of responses telling me how wrong I was.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)If you hand the same raw data to several pollsters, they'll give you different results.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)If a poll shows candidate ahead, some people might lose motivation to vote because the candidate is going to win anyway.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)That's why the Clinton team kept pointing people to the 538 estimates showing as high as a 35% chance of a Trump victory. They wanted to make sure that people didn't think that the race was in the bag (all while they were pretty sure that the race was in the bag).
Frankly, I don't "get" that. But it clearly happens.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)Losing three states by less than 1 point sucks. Some people might have believed those states were safe (and either didn't vote at all, or voted third party, or wrote someone in), and they ended up lost. And now we have president Trump.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)That's largely because the campaign told us that she had an impenetrable wall there.
Trump was campaigning actively all across the region in the closing couple weeks... while we mostly just waved at it politely. I don't know whether it was arrogance or incompetence... but we were supposed to be the ones with the experienced campaign team.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)If you are consistently up 6 points, you are going to think you are safe.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)They clearly focused on those states over the last couple weeks before the election - while we scoffed at the notion that it was anything other than a waste of time or desperation as they saw FL/NC drifting away.
radius777
(3,635 posts)they could've campaigned there just to make it appear they "overcame great obstacles" etc.
according to articles i read about this topic, Trump's team privately didn't think he would win, only a 30% chance, but "threw a hail mary" by trying to turn out the "hidden" white working class vote in those states. at least that is what "they" would have us believe.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)I'm in VA, and a number of my friends and colleagues said they didn't think they would vote because Hillary had it in the bag. I kept pushing that in the bag or not, there were two state constitutional amendments and House seats on the line, so they needed to vote on those. And once there, there's no point in NOT voting for President.
The fact that VA was closer than expected, while still comfortable, is an indicator of that behavior, IMO.
cilla4progress
(24,783 posts)These polls were consistent. Do they all use the same data set?
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)Second, some polls do share data sets.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)But there's is some group-think that occurs.
The other polling from the state (Feingold vs. Johnson), showed a rapidly closing race (dangerously so).
There also wasn't much polling reported in the final days (note that the last day of sampling was 11/2 and that none of the big pollsters paid much attention to the state at all)
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)LisaL
(44,974 posts)You have to predict turnout and who will turn out. And if those who are polled are lying to you, you have no way of knowing that.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)The error rate is based upon historical data.
What changes is how people interpret the data.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)You have to guess the turnout and who is going to turnout.
Likely voters aren't necessarily actual voters.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)be a record low. What pollsters assumed was that most of those people that wouldn't turnout were going to be from the Trump camp. Pollsters ignored, rather artfully I might add, was Hillary's likeability was upside down too. Polling data showed this, but pollsters ignored it.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)They are attempting to predict what will happen in the future.
So in order to be accurate, polls have to accurately predict who will turn out. If that's off, everything else is off to.
Also, pollsters have no way of knowing who is lying to them.
Potentially, a number of Trump supporters could have been lying about who they were going to vote for.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)Ignoring the fact that most pollsters will tell you that there is as much art as science in what they do... "social science" includes art.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)you that polling is an art. Any pollster that tells you that, is a pollster worth ignoring.
If they're taking an artful license, then they ignoring the principles of polling.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)Never heard of Mark Penn? He was White House pollster for six years under Bill Clinton and teaches the subject at Harvard along with Stephen Ansolabehere. They say that polling is more art than science.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)FBaggins
(26,775 posts)If it's all science... then they wouldn't get it wrong so often.
As for Penn? I don't think he did any polling this cycle, but he did publicly agree with Nate Silver's 65/35 odds just a couple days before the election while so many (HuffingtonPost, etc) were saying that was ridiculous.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)it wrong. If he agreed with Silver, then he got it wrong.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)If he agreed with Silver, then he got it wrong.
You're kidding, right? Who was closer to calling the race correctly?
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)turnout. People just ignored them.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)I'm still waiting to hear from this claimed vast majority of pollsters who claim that there's no art in what they do... and who called the election correctly.
There's more artistic license in your version of reality than you're likely to admit.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)The vast majority of pollsters do not call it art. I can't prove they don't call it art because I can not prove a negative.
That's like me asking you to prove that you never in your life stole a dollar from another persons wallet.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)Vox's model isn't even about polls. Nor did they predict a Trump win. Their model predicted a win for a generic Republican but then they went on to point out that the "Trump tax" was blowing a perfectly winnable election for them.
Still waiting for a single authoritative pollster who takes your position re: art/science. Don't worry... not holding breath while waiting. The only one that comes close that I've found so far is Frank Luntz at Fox. Care to hold him up as the standard?
Bob41213
(491 posts)Even assuming the data is 100% accurate, the polling still has a chance of being wrong (you could be polling all the wrong people).
First, there is a margin of error so you can usually add 3% to Trump and subtract 3% and be within the margin of error. If you combine all the polls, that number decreases of course. But even outside of that, the polls (with the margin of error) only give you a 95% confidence of being right. That's pretty good, but there is a 5% chance the results fall outside what they predict. That's statistics.
Satch59
(1,353 posts)Just saw Joy Reid do a segment on this...the panel said forget about hacking, it was about cross check and other voter suppression.
Will provisional ballots be checked during this recount? Will absentee ballots be looked at??
If WI somehow turns or serious amount of uncounted but acceptable ballots are found, the DOJ should really enter this effort?
cilla4progress
(24,783 posts)There were provisional ballots cast and retained for voters who were later purged by Cross-check?
Satch59
(1,353 posts)The panel with Joy Reid were saying cross check got rid of voters but not sure if they were disqualified when registering or voting through provisional... Need to explore the answer. They were mostly in agreement that a huge amount were not counted for these reasons and said a lot of provisional are either thrown out or just not explored, so I wonder if the provisional that exist will be looked out?
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)at all provisional and absentee ballots. Can't speak to the MI and PA.
Crosscheck, as I understand it, assists states in purging voter rolls, so it wouldn't affect registration, i.e., if Crosscheck kicks you out and you go to re-register, it would have no effect. If you don't know you were purged, and then go to vote, your provisional ballot would not be counted.
forthemiddle
(1,383 posts)So purging wouldn't matter, because someone could just re register at the polls.
That happened to my sister this year during the primary because she hadn't voted in a decade. It was no problem for her to just re register.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)Then provisional ballots shouldn't be an issue in WI, except for those voting in the wrong precincts.
KewlKat
(5,624 posts)KewlKat
(5,624 posts)Joy - My next guest has a lot to say how about votes may have been stolen but not in the way many of you think.
She reads some from Greg Palast's Rolling Stones article, Rolling stones, 24 Aug, Palast article, GOPs Stealth War Against Voters
Conversation -
Crosscheck was in use in WI MI PA NC, state where Hillary Clinton seemed on track to win but lost.
Crosschecks childish methodology; Created by Kris Kobach, now up for a job in drumpf administration; In MI (50,000) and NC (huge, maybe 100,000 but at least 35,000) the wipe out of Black, Hispanic and young voters was massive, crosscheck vote wiped out was massive;
Palast -
Lets get away from the hacking stuff. Its not about Russians hacking; its not about playing games with the software; its about machines that were mis-calibrated; its about the fact that we have about a half million absentee ballots in America that were thrown out for highly technical and questionable reasons; its 2.7 million so called provisional ballots when especially African Americans go in and their name is missing from the voter roles and theyre given a provisional ballot and which is then thrown in the dumpster; its about ballots that are supposedly blank but in fact have a mark on them and they need to be reviewed; its about machines that are off by 100th of an inch and dont read a mark on a ballot; its about 90% turnouts in rural trump areas which is just astonishing and unreal; its about blank ballots which may not be blank.
Its a technical process. Forget the hacking stuff, forget the conspiracy stuff, forget Russians, this recount, this review of the ballots and decision about which ballots are being thrown out and disqualified by the tens of thousands swamps trumps plurality in several states. This is the secret, the hidden secret of American democracy, we dont count millions of votes.
Joy -
Could the throwing out of absentee ballots combined with the knocking people off the voter roles and combined with not counting provisional ballots account for the difference (from the exit polls and votes tallied)?
Palast -
Yes. They ask if you vote, but you dont know if your vote counted.
Disqualified ballots is the real purpose of this recount.
Joy -
It's not the Russians, look at the republicans.
Satch59
(1,353 posts)This all sounds kind of feasible if they can show this tampering??
KewlKat
(5,624 posts)or got it stopped. He said NC was the hardest hit in the purge. So in his opinion, much of our loss stemmed from voter suppression in one of these manners. Makes sense. He also doesn't think the recount efforts will flip any EC votes but will hopefully show how many votes are being disqualified, rightfully or not.
Before the midterms we MUST undo some of this crap.
3catwoman3
(24,072 posts)...ballots stashed away in the trunk of some car with WI license plates. it has happened before.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)[center]
The exit polls and the pre-election polling are in close agreement in the battleground, where the very best polling was done.
And the same extreme red shift in the election count exactly where needed to swing the outcome of Senate races also:
Zambero
(8,974 posts)This piece of work eminating From Sam Brownback's Kansas experiment can be manipulated to selectively exclude ballots while staying under the radar. Provisional ballots are one thing -- they can be validated or otherwise. But a computer-driven manipulation selectively applied to targeted precincts can proceed without voters even knowing that their votes have been swindled.
The results, contrary to exit polling date, seem to speak for themselves.
cilla4progress
(24,783 posts)On an audit?
Zambero
(8,974 posts)Perhaps a recount that indicates previously uncounted paper or electronic ballots that were not included in the earlier vote tallies, provided they are not purged or destroyed, or still subject to the earlier filtering mechanism.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)isn't run against day-of votes. It's not very accurate, but it's used to provide info to states prior to the election so that they can use the admittedly shoddy information to purge their voter rolls.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)They are not exact science and could be wrong.
Claiming election is in the bag is a bad strategy. Some people think the election is safe so they don't have to vote. Or they can write in their favorite cartoon character for president.
A consistent departure from pre-election and exit polls does raise a lot of suspicion, particularly in an era of outright voter suppression and arbitrary filtering mechanisms such as Crosscheck.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)it filters registrations before the vote, correct?
anamnua
(1,126 posts)people were embarrassed about openly admitting to supporting Trump -- including opinion poll respondents -- and simply lied to the pollsters.
Zambero
(8,974 posts)These people did not seem to be bashful about their support. Indeed, Hillary supporters appeared to be more inclined to keep their allegiance under wraps.
BlueProgressive
(229 posts)didn't want to deal with any possible fallout from it coming from rabid deplorables...
cilla4progress
(24,783 posts)Their responses were essentially anonymous!
Would they do it to fuck with the system? I think this is more likely.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,347 posts)I was polled once.
Cool! I thought. It was a poll from Gallup. Finally someone is polling ME!!
Until they started asking about sexual relationships, income etc. It sure didn't feel anonymous.
Won't do that again.
Stargleamer
(1,992 posts)in California, The Field poll actually overestimated Trump's support (predicted 33%, actual result 32.4%), so I am not sure why Californians would be any less embarrassed to admit supporting Trump than Americans elsewhere.
I can't account for these Wisconsin numbers except to wonder if the 2nd Comey announcement just flipped Wisconsin. Or there was just bad polling methodology in Wisconsin.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)uponit7771
(90,367 posts)Cause that's about what we're hearing from these polsters ... a buncha fuck you America... please believe us next time type of responses
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)They know the score but one hint in print or on the air and poof, they're gone.
uponit7771
(90,367 posts)RandySF
(59,414 posts)That was overlooked by pollsters.
uponit7771
(90,367 posts)radius777
(3,635 posts)LisaL
(44,974 posts)radius777
(3,635 posts)RandySF's point (i think) was that since Iowa went for Trump, other midwestern states like WI and MI (and MN, which was close) should go similar. My point was that IA is more conservative than those other states, and can't be a metric for the upper midwest.
triron
(22,026 posts)Both poll data averages and exit polls say this was very likely (that election screwed with).
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)When you look at 2012 to 2016, the theme everywhere as returns were coming in was that Hillary was underperforming Obama. Black vote was lower. Trump got more Latinos than expected. And he got more white women then expected. Plus, the overall turnout was lower for Democrats than expected and the Republicans were higher than expected.
Polls misjudged the enthusiasm.
Some pollsters also admitted before the election that there may be a hidden Trump vote out there. So-called "Reagan Democrats" in the midwest may flip back to the GOP and give Trump a win the way they did with Reagan. The polls were assuming they were not going to flip back.
radius777
(3,635 posts)There was a lot of talk about this being the year the Latino vote would sway the election. It didnt quite happen, but the outcome shouldnt distract us from the strides made in turnout and democratic engagement in that population.
That turnout has been severely understated by the National Election Pool exit polls, on which many post-election reports are drawing: Those suggest that fully 25 percent of Latinos supported Trump.
But thats just wrong. The severe limitations of traditional exit polls to properly capture the Latino electorate have long been obvious to scholars. Improper precinct selection, for example, leads to non-representative samples that inflate support for Republicans.
The more nuanced surveys by Latino Decisions, the firm where I work, found that Trump received the lowest level of support among Latino voters on record for any presidential candidate: a mere 18 percent.
I think other exits were wrong as well, and Hillary did as good with black voters as any white Democrat (Gore, Kerry) in the modern era (Obama was the first black president, can't expect anyone else to get similar black turnout).
She likely underperformed with white college and white women, undecideds and young people, who likely broke late for Trump or stayed home due to Comey/FBI's unprecedented meddling in an election with just 11 days to go.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Hillary was underperforming all over the place in the swing states. You go to the Democratic areas and the margin of victory was smaller or the overall vote total was lower than Obama. That was a common theme in literally every single swing state. Heck, Trump was even doing way better than expected in Minnesota. So it's unlikely any one type of voter suppression or rigging was to blame here for the loss. Outside of NY, MA, CA, and Maryland....Hillary struggled with turnout in key areas needed to win swing states. That's why many are blaming the loss on identity politics.
The reality is that a number of Democrats that voted in 2012 just decided to sit this one out. I know that sounds stupid but not really that hard to believe. Most of Hillary's rallies were lacking energy. Compared to Obama who could fill a football stadium on his own, Hillary had to rely on celebrities to break 10k. The Democratic party just simply was not that excited about its candidate. It's truly that simple.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)Republicans just come out and vote. Which is why we lose.
radius777
(3,635 posts)to win.
Without Comey (which shifted the race at least 4 points, IMO) she wins easily, even if the polls were off slightly wrt to white working class support for Trump. She won all three debates and was in complete command of the race, with large polling leads nationally and consistent/steady leads in the swing states. Most of the prediction gurus and the prediction markets were very steady in their belief she would win easily.
The GOP voter suppression movement has occurred all over the country, and is worse than 2012.
She did overperform in TX, AZ and GA, most likely due to increased Latino turnout in these states.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)Wisconsin has been a blue state forever. However, the Devil himself got elected Gov here 6 years ago. I have not trusted one election since. He always brags he is a R Gov where Obama won both elections. Setting this shit up for the big cheat. Our local Gannett press, which has protected Walker since he got in....said SURPRISE FOLKS MADE UP THEIR MINDS AT THE LAST MINUTE ..yeah...that's it. Walker and the Kochs scam has worked here for years, so they decided to take it bigtime this year.
I truly madly deeply hope this recount exposes all the corruption they have done behind the scenes.
FBaggins
(26,775 posts)Feingold couldn't win his seat back?... Republicans controlling 2/3 of the state house and nearly 2/3 of the state senate?... state supreme court?... five of eight representatives to the US House?... Walker three times this decade? Do I have to say "Trump"???
If Trump doesn't tick people off enough in the next two years, I'm worried that Tammy Baldwin will have trouble holding on in an off-year election.
That's not a blue state at this point. If things don't correct soon, it isn't even a swing state.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Please keep us posted!
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)How many times did Hillary campaign in WI and how many times did Trump campaign there?
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)I've never shaken hands with Hillary either but that didn't stop me from voting for her.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)I've never met her and I voted for her too. But if actually campaigning on the ground didn't yield results, politicians wouldn't do it. Hillary didn't campaign in Wisconsin, and Trump did. Is he disingenuous? Of course he is, but Wisconsin voters saw that he came to them, not just via TV and radio, but in person. Conversely, they saw that Hillary didn't. It's certainly conceivable that they viewed her as taking their votes for granted.
Was that the difference in her winning and losing? Probably not the only reason, but I don't doubt that it was a contributing factor.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)all campaigned in Wisconsin from August through November. Now I have shaken hands with Bill and it was a memorable event but I'd already voted for him several times. In other words I really don't think Hillary being there in the flesh made a breath of difference. She clearly did not ignore the state as some have claimed.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)no matter how great they are, is not the same as the candidate at the top of the ticket going.
Trump campaigned in Wisconsin 5 or 6 times after his convention. Hillary didn't go once after hers.
For you or for me or for many voters, it doesn't make a difference. But if you're the rural voter who already feels ignored by your government, I believe it most certainly can make the difference.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Unless they woke up each morning and scanned HFA to find out how many days had passed since she was there in March-April? I really think this kind of excuse-making is for the birds. Per the RCP polls Comey's letters didn't make a dent so I doubt if one more or less speech at one more or less greasy spoon have would have made any difference either.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)You think they don't turn on the radio, hear that Trump is there? You think they never realized that Hillary wasn't there?
I'm not claiming that they knew the exact number of days since she was there, but if a candidate is there 6 times in 4 months, they're going to notice it. And they're going to realize that the other candidate wasn't there in a long time, even if they don't know exactly how long.
You're free of course to believe whatever you choose, but the bottom line is that Trump went, Hillary didn't. Trump won the state, Hillary didn't.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)If a candidate going to a state makes no difference, why do they do it?
And we know who won the state...some of us can just accept it better than others.