A group of competing Democratic pollsters came together and offered a mea culpa for their poor performance in 2020, admitting there were “major errors” in their polling, in part, due to former President Donald Trump himself.
“2020 was an ‘Oh, s—‘ moment for all of us,” said one of the pollsters involved. “And I think that we all kinda quickly came to the point that we need to set our egos aside. We need to get this right.”
The pollsters admitted that together they “saw major errors and failed to live up to our own expectations.” But while they identified some reasons for the errors, they also admitted there was “no consensus on a solution.”
The pollsters identified culprits such as deteriorating trust among the public in the media, polls, and government institutions as a reason for the failure, noting that Trump was a leading figure driving the mistrust in pollsters among his followers.
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“Trump went after the polls,” said another pollster involved in the review. “He was really pretty overt to those that were listening about some of his distrust of polls or media.”
As voting data from the election paints a clearer picture of who voted and who didn’t, pollsters also noted they severely underestimated the turnout of Trump supporters, especially among rural white, non-college-educated voters.
“This turnout error was clearly one factor in polling being off across the board, but especially in deeply Republican areas,” a memo released by the group reads. “It also meant, at least in some places, we again underestimated relative turnout among rural and white non-college voters, who are overrepresented among low propensity Republicans.”
Although the pollsters typically compete with one another for business from Democratic candidates, they made the unusual step of collaborating after 2020’s election results stood in stark contrast to what their polls had predicted. The pollsters not only showed large leads for eventual President Joe Biden but also displayed confidence in a Senate takeover and an expanding House majority.
While Democrats were able to capture victories in both legislative chambers and win the White House, they did so by the narrowest of margins while losing seats in the House of Representatives.
The Trump turnout machine was only a fraction of the problem pollsters identified, admitting that even if they had properly adjusted for Trump’s large turnout, their polls still would have been biased toward Democratic candidates.
A theory given as to why polls missed the mark were late movements toward Trump and Democrats being more likely to follow COVID-19 restrictions and stay home, making them more likely to answer the phone, and a decline of faith in institutions or lack of social trust.
“While there is evidence some of these theories played a part, no consensus on a solution has emerged. What we have settled on is the idea there is something systematically different about the people we reached, and the people we did not,” the memo reads. “This problem appears to have been amplified when Trump was on the ballot, and it is these particular voters who Trump activated that did not participate in polls.”
Some of the pollsters believe their problems with accuracy can be isolated to Trump, with the lack of accuracy fading if he is not on future ballots.
“I don’t think we know what it is. I think we still have a lot of work to do to figure it out,” one pollster said. “I’m marginally optimistic that if Trump is on the ballot in ’24 that we can fix it. I don’t know. If he’s not, I do think a lot of it could resolve itself.”
But the pollsters acknowledge that the problem goes back to at least 2012, with their polls consistently showing strong performances for Democrats that later fail to materialize on Election Day.
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The group, which included ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group, and Normington Petts, hopes the collaboration can help isolate the problem and make the pollsters all more accurate in future elections.
“One should feel comfortable talking to your competitors because, ultimately, we all want the same thing,” said another pollster. “We all want a useful way to help give guidance to Democratic candidates and progressive causes.”
