The Polls Weren’t Wrong
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On tuesday night, petition a teda realized the election was breaking for trump. When georgia and north CarOlina began reporting results.

IT sort of began to cover us that he could win those two states which were likely necessary for the Harris campaign um if he had lost any. One of the three blue wall states .

to teach is the director of the U. M, S. Pole and a political science professor at U.

S. M. merged. After looking at those early numbers, he began listening to a democratic surrogates were saying on T. V. To an expert like to teach, IT was a clear message.

You saw a number of democratic strategists on M S N B C or CNN talking about, uh, there, you know, confidence that they can still win the election. And that is going to come down to the three midwest states.

River cost is reporting the gentle male. Dylan has now sent out a memo she's campaign manager for the vice president haris, and says they still believe that the blue wall is the ultimate way to win.

Is once I started hearing that, I thought this might be done.

At the end the day, truck didn't just win. He took most of the swing states. He won the popular vote. IT wasn't really that close. That's something that might have surprised americans.

Looking at national opinion polling before election day, you look at opinion polls going in to tuesday, show them more or less tired. I think you guys maybe had her up two points, uh, toward the end, october. Were all those polls wrong?

I don't know if they were wrong. I think one of the things that pollsters and polls attempted to communicate is that this is going to be an extremely close election and it's going to come down to two factors. First, which candidate is going to be able to turn out, uh, their voters and then secondarily, where do those voters who are on the fence? Which side do they decide on in the last weeks and days before the election?

And just like in twenty sixteen, those last minute voters went, what's more to he says that's actually not surprising if you dig into some other calling.

I think the surprising thing was the fact that Harris was unable to win any of those swing states, right? And so in some ways, that's a reflection of a national dynamic. The national dynamic was many voters were unhappy with the current administration, were unhappy in large part with the direction of the country. And that's what polling has been demonstrating over the course of months, if not years, that americans are not OK with where the country is going and where it's been.

Today, on the show, in a week where americans are digger into percentages and exit poles and probably misunderstanding them, we're gonna teach you how to do IT the right way. I'm lezlie and you're listening to what next? T, V, D, A show about technology, power and how the future will be determined. Stick around.

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I wanted to talk to you is to help listener's understand how polling works, because think a lot of americans just don't really understand IT. Despite the number of polls that we see all the time, I think a lot of people think of a pole as predictive. Like if they see fifty to forty seven, they think, oh, that means that canada has a fifty percent chance of winning.

But that is not correct, right? Can you explain how that works? To me?

The first thing I always says that polls are not predictive. Polls are snapshots of where the public is at the moment in which the poll was in the field. And so poles should be used to explain first and foremost.

And you know, I always say pollsters and polls, they're not suit stairs. They can tell you about the eyes of march and that seizures is going to die. But what they can tell you is that scissor is likely in trouble and that there are some indications that the person or people that are going to, uh, be a threat to him might be around him. And so they can explain, but they can predict, they can predict exactly what's going to happen.

Why do you think we have this consistent problem in understanding that?

Yeah mean, I think first and foremost is a reflection of the use of polls, at least political polls in our society is that.

is that a media literary problem? Was that on us, me, the media?

So the media, if you just look at the ways in which the employee polls is to articulate that these are predictive, that this is what's going to happen, uh, and that the polls are the best information that we can garner to predict again the future and that is not ever push back by the polling organizations and the pollsters that appear on media um shows and you know who have emerged political poundings.

They make the same sort of implicit and at times explicit claims that polls are predictive but it's also posters, uh, whether that five thirty eight, whether that poster ers you see on CNN or M S N B C or fox news, they don't ever undermine the overarching argument that polls are not about prediction thereabout explanation. And we know there is also the the lack of recognition that polls again are snapshots of where people are at. But events occur that can shift and change the ways in which the public sees elections, these candidates. And so in this election cycle, there were so many distinct events that had these um you know had these impacts on the public. So whether it's assassination attempts, whether it's the replacement of one candidate or the other, whether it's you know stand up comedians making uh racist jokes about an entire nation, stay, you have these various events that uh, have this impact on the way in which people see the the election, see these elected officials, which then undermine the predictive quality of these polls.

Take take me inside that because I know that you have been polling during this cycle like what do you do to get to pull out in the field when suddenly there's new candidate suddenly one of the candidates in the victim of an assassin attempts, do you change direction?

So in july, early july, we had a poll that was going to be in the field um during the republican national convention and really get a sense of american sentiments regarding the republican party and president trump and his selection for a vice president. That poll is going to be in the field and then an assassination attempt to occurred with president trump.

We scrap that poll and we pivoted towards the pole that focused on political violence and assassination attempts and what people think about the rhetoric that been used in politics, whether that's the redirect regarding, you know, the threat that president trump poses or the redeem sort of undermining at that moment in time, president fightings age and mental security. And so we then had that, that second pole ready to go. And in that same week we find that president died and decided to to leave the race.

And so you have, again, another extremely important event. And in within minutes of leaving the race, then points to vice president Harris as a successor. And so then we pivoted once again and started to focus our attention on assessments of Harris and a Harris versus trump t election and levels of emotions regarding this new matchup.

And so this is uh a reflection of the quality of our team here at the U. S. For but it's, I think, posters more generally to be equipped to recognize when events occur to then shift the focus of your your pole, shift the focus of your questions to reflect the ways in which politics are being understood by the public at large.

When we come back, nobody picks up a phone anymore. How the tech behind polling is keeping up?

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Dim tuition the U. S. Pole made a significant choice back in twenty ten. They decided to move away from telephone polling and go on mine.

And one of the great things of how the internet and and until today, it's much more efficient, it's much more effective and it's also much more a cheap, its cost effective. And we made that decision early on and IT was not in line with the standard in the industry, which was still random digit dilling uh or face to face interviewing, which is which are both the extremely expensive and with technological change, in particular, the use of cell phones, the replacement of com phones and color I D.

You saw a lot of survey organizations which relied on render digit dying, beginning to recognize the chAllenges of getting representative samples, but also the chAllenges of getting individuals to respond because of color. I D know I have a colleague here with the U. S.

Pole, alex, the horridus, who says a the technological shift to cell phones and to color I D had a negative impact on two industries. The first industry is polling, but the second industry are forty phone calls. You don't have you have the sort of the notion that you don't have those anymore record.

You just sort of say reject. And so the the we believe we were again translators here because we've been relying on online polling sense that provides representative strong representative samples and in a cost effective way. And it's in line with the preferences that I think americans tend to have also.

And nobody under the age of thirty .

answers their phone exactly, and no one under the age of thirty has a hole phone either. So again, IT becomes very, very difficult to so go back to a point in time in which people are willing to answer their phones um and also interested in answering their phones and then even when they answered their phones.

Just to be Frank, there is a you know issue in terms of trusting confidence in the number of various institutions, whether that is pollsters or higher education. What you tend to find is a number of polling organizations are connected, like ours is with universities. And we know that there has been crisis of confidence in in higher education. And so there are a lot of chAllenges associated with with red of digital ling and with face to face interviewing that using online polling does not necessarily face in the same way.

This may be a really stupid question, but like how how do you do an online poll? Give me the give me the leg explaining IT to .

my mom version. So we actually are not the ones who do the online polling. So we farm out um a lot of the polling to organization. You gov um which is one of the the leading online bolsters not just in the united states but in the world.

They have millions of people in their population or in their sample um that are given points to the purchase various things um based on the surveys that they take. What you got does is uh correct sample of individuals from their population of respondents that are representative of demographic and political characteristics。 They then wait that data to ensure the representative veness of that of the sample.

And we are the ones who write the survey. We write the questions. Um we sort of order the questions in ways that makes sense to respondents, and then we analyze the data when we get to back. And so you much of the structure, much of the sort of you know not in bold of IT are formed out to you. gov.

Is online pulling reliable?

I would say this um I mean of course that has its its tissues as any form of polling or has a you know one of the issues is the difficulty in ensuring a representative sample, ensuring that you provide the correct weights to reflect the population to ensure that you in your sample of respondents have enough in a variation in diversity. And that's not just diversity in the traditional sense of race or ethnicity or gender or religion, but diversity in terms of geography, diversity in terms of ideological and partisan understanding, diversity in terms of the level of political participation that allows for, again, the collection of a representative sample that then can make inferences and generalizations about where the public is in the .

aftermaths of an election. Know where we are in this particular moment. Now we spend a lot of time pouring over exit poll data. Okay, we're looking at this thing in IT as fifty three percent of White women who voted for trap. Yeah, you said earlier that examples are not always that reliable. How important is existing to trying to understand minds of voters and and how much wait should we give IT when we're trying to understand and tease out the threads of public behavior?

yes. So luck in the wake of what many feel is a surprising result. We are always looking for data that helps us to explain that result.

And examples have been used historically to provide us with, as you quick data, a quick understanding of where the public is. But of course, IT has problems. One of the central problems, uh, is that and this is true more particularly in in more recent races.

So exit polls are done after people go to out. And we know that there is a distinction in terms of those who decide to vote early or to vote by malum relative to those who vote on election day. And so those who vote on election, at least in more recent elections, have been republican.

And we know the republican party tends to be made up of older folks, White folks, more well off folks. And so you have in exit polling as a result of the focus on the same day voting, uh, a skew towards republicans and an underestimation and under representation of people of color, working class folks as well. And so it's always very difficult to make inferences from examples for those types of groups because they just don't interview a lot of them.

That being said, again, IT provides us at least with an initial picture. But if you're looking for much Better data in terms of who is voting and and wither voting, you ve got a wait until you get information from surveys that have validated voters and that just, uh, double checking the registration and turn out of voters against those who are for um taking these service. Or you could look to the ap vocation again, which is a much more high quality set of data.

One of the things i'm hearing in your voices like you need patients here and you need data and american .

sert not real good at yeah sitting .

around and waiting .

no we have no patients. And so this week, since tuesday night, has been a avoid of explanations about what happened and who is to blame.

At least those who are attempting to explain what happened to lean left support the democratic party and what they're finding is individuals looking to whether it's lino men or White women or White people in general, uh or women in general, um to try to explain why is a particular candidate lost in a particular candidate one and first and foremost patients is great. But second, blaming is not going to get folks anywhere. What we need is, again, high quality data, and we need and this is where polls come in.

So of post election polls, some sembLance of allowing respondents to provide a justification for why they did what they did. And so we know that a strong majority of americans, at least you know, a majority of americans supported Donald. So allow them to explain the reasons why that, that is the case. So we're getting some indication that people really were concerned with the economy and that declarations how how well the economy is doing do not really reflect on the ground experiences. That's one factor.

I think another factor is you know a lot of the connections between Harris and and biden and he was unable to in large part distance ourself from the biden administration and then we can look into whether not various isms, whether that sexism or racism played an important role in the lack of support for Harris relative to twenty twenty um and joe biden. And so you know there are number of factors that are out there that I think social scientists are going to be looking at, pollsters are going to be looking at and pundits are going to be looking at. But we need higher quality data. Expose are not really the place to find the answers to the questions. I think we all have one .

of the things that you have talked about and that we have seen. I think you could argue in the last several election cycles is frustration with institutions, whether that higher education, whether that is the media, whether that is the government. And I think in the twenty sixteen cycle, and then again and twenty twenty polling became one of those institutions and amusing air quotes that was often distrusted by the public. And I wonder how you think it's do a ball, whether it's do a ball to restore confidence in what you do as a pillar of of understanding who we are and what we think.

The big question so I can you .

solve your your industry .

and thirty seconds next? Yeah yeah. okay. So I think the first thing is for polling organizations to recognize that one of the issues that the public has is the perception that polling organizations either have an ideological or partisan bent.

And so that is, the first step is to communicate that the majority, overwhelming majority of polling organizations have at the heart of their mission to be non parties and nonideological to reflect where the public is. I think the second thing is there needs to be, and we've talked about this previously, a Better discussion about the fact that polls are not predictive. I think much of the disdain and the ire that polls and posters have been experiencing is this inconsequent between what the polls say and then what actually happens.

But polls are not predictive. There are explanations, their snapshots of where the public is at that moment in time. And I think again, um it's up to pollsters themselves to do forms like this to communicate what they do. And why they do IT and to be as Frank as possible that this is an extremely difficult job that we do have these chAllenges in terms of our reputation. We do have these chAllenges in terms of the ways in which individuals are hesitant to participate um in this activity. But it's fundamentally important in a democratic nation to provide information about where the public is at, whether that's on a policy, whether that's on perceptions of where the nation is or where the nation is going, whether that's in terms of how they view out groups, whether those are racial, ethnic, uh, our groups, gender out groups, because, you know, the project is an inclusive one, not what the ted states. And what polls do is to provide that information to elected officials, to the public, to stakeholders, to interest groups, to everyday americans, so that they know where we are at in order to start a Better way forward.

data. Thank you so much for your time, and we're talking with me.

Thank you.

Tradition, etta is the proposed professor of political science at the university of massachuset, amr st. And the director of the U. S.

poll. And that is IT for our show today. What next? T, B, D is produced by evan Campbell, Patrick ford, sharrock and elisa junk.

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