Perception doesn’t always equal reality. Pollsters who worked through the 2016 presidential election are quick to point that out.
The integrity of political polling was called into question after the 2016 election due to the shocking upset of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump. Given the fact that the dominant narrative was that Clinton was going to beat Trump, political observers have been skeptical of political polling data ever since.
Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster at Echelon Insights and columnist with the Washington Examiner, explains that their skepticism is actually justified.
“Polls nationwide actually were fine,” Anderson said told Siraj Hashmi, “but it was in a handful of these key blue states, swing state-type polls that voters without college degrees were not being sampled properly.”
Anderson continued to say that polls now have a heavy emphasis on education to make sure that registered voters on all levels are accurately represented in a sample. In addition to that, pollsters have adjusted their approach so that they strike the right age balance in their polling sample.
An inaccurate poll can cause quite a bit of confusion and give a particular politician the illusion of winning when that isn’t necessarily the case.
When it comes to Joe Biden, he’s leading nationally over President Trump, but the betting odds favor the incumbent.
“Betting odds are in some ways a lagging indicator,” Anderson said. “It sort of reflects conventional wisdom […] there’s sort of the assumption that if the polls got it wrong last time, are they going to get it wrong in the same direction this time, and, if so, you’re probably going to get a pretty good deal on buying shares on Trump in these betting markets.”
