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Some of "the polls were wrong" talk started before all the votes were counted, definitely. In certain states (WI most notably) the polls were definitely far off

Some of "the polls were wrong" talk started before all the votes were counted, definitely. In certain states (WI most notably) the polls were definitely far off. I don't know if there were more states where polling was inaccurate than normal, though.

slg 6y ago
Were they really "far off" outside of Wisconsin and Miami-Dade county? Those were the only two results that seemed truly surprising. Results like North Carolina going from Biden ahead by 1% to Trump ahead by 1% or Michigan going from Biden up 7% to up 3% are perfectly normal polling errors. In a normal election, I think there would have been a good chance that the polling miss in Wisconsin would have been an afterthought after Biden was declared the winner late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
- kevinmchugh 6y ago
  Iowa, Texas, and Ohio weren't close and polls had them there. Those were all about 5% off. I don't know how many states end up that far off in typical elections. Maybe Ohio ends up closer, once counting is done there. (I wasn't surprised by those results and the campaigns didn't act like they were close, so.) Double checking my memory, I see Maine 2 was way off! Not gonna get too worried about that. That one's hard. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-werent-great-but-thats-pretty-normal/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-werent-great-...
  - slg 6y ago
    Fair point about those three states. They were often ignored because if they went for Biden it meant there was a huge landslide in his favor. If you click through one of those links in that linked article you get to this[1] article from 2018 that lists the average polling error at 5.9%. Maybe it is just people have unrealistic expectations for these things any miss beyond a point or two is going to be dubbed as "THE POLLS ARE WRONG!". [1] - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  For the Presidential election, I don't think any other states were too far outside the margin of error, but there were a lot of high-profile downballot races with similarly absurd differences. Susan Collins did something like 12 percentage points better than her polling.
  - slg 6y ago
    This was the first go for ranked choice voting in that Maine Senate race. I don't think anyone should draw any drastic conclusions from a polling miss there.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Oh, I actually didn't realize that, I thought they'd had it for a while. I agree that complicates things.
- Misdicorl 6y ago
  Missouri, for instance, was off by 8 points between 538 model and results. That seems well outside a normal polling error.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Could you clarify this? According to the results I'm seeing, in Missouri Trump got 56.9% and Biden got 41.3%. I can't imagine anyone was predicting 8% less for Trump and more for Biden. That would have Biden winning Missouri, which would have been ridiculous. An 8% different prediction in the other direction also seems implausible. Perhaps you could link to the 538 prediction?
    - Misdicorl 6y ago
      That's a 16 point win for Trump. The polls were predicting an 8 point win e.g. 54/46
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        Thanks, that makes sense. I vote in one the hillbilliest locations in the state. When I arrived at 6 AM and saw the several-hundred-feet-long line of people, I knew the Trump vote was going to be higher than I had expected going in.

slg 6y ago

Were they really "far off" outside of Wisconsin and Miami-Dade county? Those were the only two results that seemed truly surprising. Results like North Carolina going from Biden ahead by 1% to Trump ahead by 1% or Michigan going from Biden up 7% to up 3% are perfectly normal polling errors. In a normal election, I think there would have been a good chance that the polling miss in Wisconsin would have been an afterthought after Biden was declared the winner late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

kevinmchugh 6y ago
Iowa, Texas, and Ohio weren't close and polls had them there. Those were all about 5% off. I don't know how many states end up that far off in typical elections. Maybe Ohio ends up closer, once counting is done there. (I wasn't surprised by those results and the campaigns didn't act like they were close, so.) Double checking my memory, I see Maine 2 was way off! Not gonna get too worried about that. That one's hard. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-werent-great-but-thats-pretty-normal/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-werent-great-...
- slg 6y ago
  Fair point about those three states. They were often ignored because if they went for Biden it meant there was a huge landslide in his favor. If you click through one of those links in that linked article you get to this[1] article from 2018 that lists the average polling error at 5.9%. Maybe it is just people have unrealistic expectations for these things any miss beyond a point or two is going to be dubbed as "THE POLLS ARE WRONG!". [1] - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right...
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
For the Presidential election, I don't think any other states were too far outside the margin of error, but there were a lot of high-profile downballot races with similarly absurd differences. Susan Collins did something like 12 percentage points better than her polling.
- slg 6y ago
  This was the first go for ranked choice voting in that Maine Senate race. I don't think anyone should draw any drastic conclusions from a polling miss there.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Oh, I actually didn't realize that, I thought they'd had it for a while. I agree that complicates things.
Misdicorl 6y ago
Missouri, for instance, was off by 8 points between 538 model and results. That seems well outside a normal polling error.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Could you clarify this? According to the results I'm seeing, in Missouri Trump got 56.9% and Biden got 41.3%. I can't imagine anyone was predicting 8% less for Trump and more for Biden. That would have Biden winning Missouri, which would have been ridiculous. An 8% different prediction in the other direction also seems implausible. Perhaps you could link to the 538 prediction?
  - Misdicorl 6y ago
    That's a 16 point win for Trump. The polls were predicting an 8 point win e.g. 54/46
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Thanks, that makes sense. I vote in one the hillbilliest locations in the state. When I arrived at 6 AM and saw the several-hundred-feet-long line of people, I knew the Trump vote was going to be higher than I had expected going in.