Pollsters Get It Wrong By “Huge Margins,” Say It’s “Unforgivable”

There’s a funny joke about weathermen always being wrong:

“Sex with a weatherman must suck. Always telling you to expect 8-12 inches, only to find out it’s not even 4.”

I mean, who else can be wrong as often as them and still have a job? I’ll tell you who.

Pollsters.

Listen to this.

The New York Times/Siena poll predicted a 3-point Florida win and Quinnipiac predicted a 6-point win for Biden in Florida. Trump won by 3 points. That’s a 6-9 point swing.

The final Quinnipiac poll out of Ohio showed Biden winning by 4 points, when Trump actually won by almost 8 points. That’s another huge 12 point failure.

Likewise, Quinnipiac consistently put Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison tied at 48-48, and Senator Graham won that race by 11 points.

And again, Quinnipiac predicted Trump winning Iowa by only 1 point when, in fact, he won the by 8 percentage points.

Or how about this one: RealClearPolitics said that Democrat candidate Sara Gideon was favored to win the Maine Senate race by margins as high as 12 points. And in fact, Suzan Collins won the race by 7 points. Not a single survey used for the RealClearPolitics poll showed Collins winning by any margin at all. They had absolutely no indication that she would win. They got that wrong by as much as 19 points.

Not a single poll public poll of Maine released since February showed Susan Collins ahead in her Senate race. Quinnipiac’s last poll in the state said Collins would lose by 12.

On Fox last night, Chris Stirewalt said 2020 polls performed pretty well. https://t.co/ipE7Z3m2U4 pic.twitter.com/cFmUw5QalB

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 4, 2020

Really, pollsters were the biggest losers on Election Day.

Just to recap how wrong the polls were in 2020:

Iowa: Wrong by 6.2%
Ohio: Wrong by 7.1%
Wisconsin: Wrong by 6.1%
Florida: Wrong by 4.3%
Texas: Wrong by 4.6%

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that they were all wrong in favor of Joe Biden…

— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) November 5, 2020

Prominent pollster Frank Luntz told the DailyMail.com that the fault lies with uncooperative Trump voters, saying,

“Trump voters assume polls and pollsters have an agenda that doesn’t include them, so they refuse to cooperate. That’s why they’re underrepresented. That’s why they get left out of the polls. The only way to fix this is to let Trump voters know they have a voice and that their opinions truly matter.”

“Trump voters are hostile to pollsters because they think the pollsters want to make them look bad.  They wear it as a badge of honor that they refuse to cooperate and refuse to be interviewed.  As a result, measuring the breadth of support for Donald Trump is tricky. But to get it wrong twice in a row by huge margins is unforgivable.”

And Fox election analyst Steve Hilton captured the probable sentiments of these so-called “uncooperative” Trump supporters when he said,

“It’s been this relentless barrage of hatred toward President Trump and the complete assumption Biden was going to walk it. Because of the incredible degree of hate that’s been directed to President Trump and his supporters by nearly all the media, you’ve got this situation… where people didn’t necessarily want to admit to pollsters who they were supporting because it was socially embarrassing to do so. If all you hear day in and day out that Trump is an evil, racist monster, then it’s going to make it less likely you admit to supporting him, including to pollsters. And they haven’t really taken that into account at all.”

Independent pollster Richard Baris acknowledged a serious problem within his industry saying,

“This industry is dominated by left-wingers. And a big, big problem is they’re trying to profile the voting behavior of people they don’t understand and may even despise.”

And well known GOP pollster Neil Newhouse explained to Fox News that

“there are a bunch of folks out there who don’t trust polls and therefore opt out of polls. They don’t want to disclose to others who they support. They believe that their responses will somehow be used against them or will be recorded someplace and attached to their name and specifically may not be comfortable telling someone else they are voting for Trump.”

And who can blame them when major democrats are taking to social median and encouraging people to compile lists of Trump supporters in order to blacklist them from job opportunities and publicly shame them.

Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into “polite” society. We have a list.

— Jennifer ‘the people decide’ Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) November 6, 2020

Who could have seen this coming pic.twitter.com/8cUBQxMHgP

— Gulag Inmate 4859 (@JackPosobiec) November 6, 2020

We should keep and publish a list of everyone who assists Trump’s frivolous and dangerous attacks on the election. Name and shame forever.

— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) November 6, 2020

I know I’m on a list somewhere at this point because I’ve said too much that goes against the narrative. But before I took the plunge out of secrecy and started using my voice, I don’t know that I would have responded to a pollster for exactly the reasons mentioned above. And the real question in all this is, if pollsters can be so incredibly wrong, why do we continue to let them have such an incredible influence on our elections?