I do trust most of the polling.
I mean, obviously, it's always subject to change.
I don't trust that, that pulse.
I trust them somewhat. In 2016,
most of the national election polling infamously predicted Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton would win the White House.
Pollsters say that's because they usually measure the popular vote,
not the Electoral College. So can the public trust polls?
Here's what we know now.
How did so many pollsters get the 2016 presidential outcome
wrong?
So national polls are meant to kind of reflect,
I would say, the popular vote in the country,
right? Think of like Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
People said the polls were wrong that year.
But if you look at those national polls,
they actually, they reflected what that election said for a
Democrat to be winning in a national poll.
They actually need to be doing three or four percentage
points higher than their Republican competitor because of large liberal
leaning states like New York and California.
And state polls are a good place to look for
really,
that horse race and to see how things are shaking
out.
Why conduct election polling? It's meant to take the temperature,
essentially of the electorate in the country to know what
issues they care about.
You know, what's driving their opinions on on some of
the major trends in the US when looking at polls?
Is there anything that people should be wary of?
You want to be cautious of polls that have only
two candidates.
So if you're looking at a poll and voters were
only asked about whether they supported Biden or Trump,
there's a little bit of hesitancy there,
a little bit of caution going into looking at that
poll because there are going to be other people in
this race.