Trump makes pollsters look like fools again | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Monday
May 29, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
MONDAY, MAY 29, 2023
Trump makes pollsters look like fools again

Panorama

Azizur Rahman Anik
04 November, 2020, 09:20 pm
Last modified: 05 November, 2020, 01:52 am

Related News

  • Biden sounds hopeful on debt ceiling, Treasury warns of 5 June default
  • Biden, McCarthy appear near two-year deal on US debt ceiling as default looms
  • After White House truck crash, driver charged with threatening Biden
  • Trump criminal trial to start next March, with campaign in full swing
  • Biden, McCarthy meeting ends with no deal on debt ceiling

Trump makes pollsters look like fools again

Apart from Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and Des Moines Register/Selzer and Co poll from Iowa, almost everyone, including Republican pollsters predicted a Biden win

Azizur Rahman Anik
04 November, 2020, 09:20 pm
Last modified: 05 November, 2020, 01:52 am
Illustration: Asifur Rahman/TBS
Illustration: Asifur Rahman/TBS

Going into the final few days of 2016 US presidential election, we were told by pollsters that Hilary Clinton was certainly going to win.  

American statistics and polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight stated that Clinton had 71.4% chance of winning the presidency and, being generous enough, they gave Trump a 30% chance of winning.

Some even said Clinton had a 99% chance of winning. Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium estimated Trump's chances at less than 1%, and even pledged to eat a bug if Trump earned more than 240 electoral votes, which he later did!

Four years on, the memory of Donald Trump's surprise victory in 2016 still haunts forecasters and pollsters and they certainly did not want to eat bugs. This time, over the last few weeks, we were told why the pollsters would not be making the same mistake again.

Averages of high-quality surveys – those done on telephone, not online, and with track records of accuracy – showed Biden leading in the three Midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that gave Donald Trump the presidency in 2016.

Shibley Telhami, a pollster and professor of political science at the University of Maryland told Al Jazeera, "Any real objective analysis, including an objective comparison to 2016, would lead you to believe that Trump's situation is pretty much hopeless."

Also, looking at the political polling data, it would seem obvious that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is winning the election.

And yet, irrespective of who finally wins the US election, it is clear Trump has made a fool of the pollsters once again. The US President was told to expect 'landslide' in election. During an interview with Andrew Neil on TimesRadio, journalist and biographer Michael Wolff said Donald Trump will suffer a "landslide" defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 US Presidential election. "Everyone knows it is going to be a landslide, but is it a 45-state landslide?" added Michael.

But, the reality sunk in the minute Florida started reporting its election results. And, at the time this report was filed, Trump already won 22 states amongst the 50 US states. 

Apart from Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and Des Moines Register/Selzer and Co. poll from Iowa, almost everyone, including Republican pollsters predicted a Biden win.

The consensus of major national polls tracked by FiveThirtyEight gave Biden a stunning 8.4 percentage point lead on 1 November. The Economist on November 3 predicted that Biden has 97% winning chance. The New York Times also said that Biden will end with a commanding lead.

 "If Biden wins what would the first 100 days of his presidency look like?" an article published by The Guardian discussed what would happen after Biden wins and what should he do.

Emboldened by the poll prediction Neera Tanden, who was director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign also said, "Biden's 'first orders of business' in office would probably be aimed at containing the death toll and addressing the economic damage."

Even if Biden pulls off a surprise now, it is clear the pollsters and pundits were far off the mark when predicting the elections once again.

Most polls are weighted surveys. That means a pollster collects a bunch of responses and then weights, or adjusts, the answers by age, gender, and political orientation so that the final count closely resembles the American electorate.

In 2016, many pollsters failed to adjust for the fact that college-educated Americans are typically more likely to respond to surveys. Another way to say this is that pollsters "under-sampled" non-college-educated voters. In short, state pollsters made a huge, obvious mistake: Their surveys failed to account for 2016's most important demographic phenomenon.

Thus, in 2020, the pollsters learning from their mistakes, changed their survey method. Pew Research Centre now weights by education within racial groups. The Marist College and NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls now also weight by geography, in part because college-educated voters are more likely to live in urban and suburban areas.

And yet the new methodology appears to have failed to rescue them once again. And 2016 and 2020 are not the only times they got things wrong.

In 1948, like Hillary and Biden, Thomas E. Dewey was the clear establishment pick from the start, and everyone dismissed the slightest idea of Harry S. Truman being the president. Even, Chicago Daliy Tribune carries the immortal headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman", Published in November 3, 1948.

In every election going back to the 1980s, the loser was, at some point, ahead in mainstream polls or in the average of polls. In the summer of 1988, Michael Dukakis led George H. W. Bush by double digits. In the spring of 1992, both Ross Perot and Bush were leading Bill Clinton. In January 1996, Bob Dole held a narrow lead over Clinton in Gallup polls. In September 2000, Al Gore surged ahead of George W. Bush. In August 2004, John Kerry led Bush. In September 2008, John McCain led Obama. In October 2012, Mitt Romney inched ahead of Obama.

Political polling was fun to watch, but given the performance of pollsters during 2016 and this years' election, it should be treated more as entertainment.

 

Top News / US Election 2020

Donald Trump / Joe Biden / US election 2020

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Govt's borrowing from treasury bills up by Tk65,000cr in FY23
    Govt's borrowing from treasury bills up by Tk65,000cr in FY23
  • Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he addresses his supporters following early exit poll results for the second round of the presidential election in Istanbul, Turkey May 28, 2023. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
    Turkey's Erdogan claims victory in presidential election
  • Photo: Collected
    BBS to introduce district-wise GDP

MOST VIEWED

  • Illustration: TBS
    'Cybercriminals are creating new ways of hacking'
  • Under SmartMek’s package, farmers can have access to large agricultural machines such as combined harvesters.
Photo: TBS
    SmartMek: Providing digitised services to the farmers through smart cards
  • Illustration: Bloomberg
    AI will supercharge productivity. Will workers benefit?
  • Extras in a movie set. Photo: Collected
    A nurse, a beggar, or a police officer: The lives of extras in tinsel town
  • 17a Belmont street Aberdeen. Photo: Courtesy
    Life in the Wild: How it all started
  • 14 months of nightmare: Migrant workers' struggle to secure loans from Probashi Kallyan Bank
    14 months of nightmare: Migrant workers' struggle to secure loans from Probashi Kallyan Bank

Related News

  • Biden sounds hopeful on debt ceiling, Treasury warns of 5 June default
  • Biden, McCarthy appear near two-year deal on US debt ceiling as default looms
  • After White House truck crash, driver charged with threatening Biden
  • Trump criminal trial to start next March, with campaign in full swing
  • Biden, McCarthy meeting ends with no deal on debt ceiling

Features

Unwinding poolside, she revels in self-care, her flawless complexion glowing under the gentle sun. Photo: Rony Rezaul. Model: Tangia Zaman Methila

Dive into Summer Style: Get Ready to Sizzle by the Pool

20h | Mode
Illustration: TBS

'Cybercriminals are creating new ways of hacking'

22h | Panorama
Under SmartMek’s package, farmers can have access to large agricultural machines such as combined harvesters.
Photo: TBS

SmartMek: Providing digitised services to the farmers through smart cards

23h | Panorama
Illustration: Bloomberg

AI will supercharge productivity. Will workers benefit?

21h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Turks are voting in presidential run-off

Turks are voting in presidential run-off

15h | TBS World
Temperature will surpass 1.5 degree by 2027

Temperature will surpass 1.5 degree by 2027

22h | TBS World
Dubai’s gigantic moon shaped mega resort

Dubai’s gigantic moon shaped mega resort

1d | TBS World
In an interview given to TBS Lt. Col. Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury

In an interview given to TBS Lt. Col. Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury

3d | TBS Stories

Most Read

1
End of zero tax!
NBR

End of zero tax!

2
Photo: TBS
Energy

Wind power feeds national grid for first time Friday

3
Photo: TBS
Bangladesh

Private helicopter service launched in Ctg

4
Malaysian ship docks at Mongla port with 926 luxurious cars
Bangladesh

Malaysian ship docks at Mongla port with 926 luxurious cars

5
Nagad builds hope on Tk510cr bond, incurs Tk625cr loss
Economy

Nagad builds hope on Tk510cr bond, incurs Tk625cr loss

6
Cenbank prints Tk70,000cr new money in 11 months to support nat'l budget
Budget

Cenbank prints Tk70,000cr new money in 11 months to support nat'l budget

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]