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Do polls underestimate Trumps support?

Right, polls made an error in favor of Bush, not Gore, my bad.
Same thing as here but the opposite way, apparently.

I think we need to give up on finding the perfect methodology and focus on individualizing methodologies based on the specifics of every election.

McHrozni

The political polls serve mostly the same function as the college football polls. They give people something to talk about while they are waiting for the actual argument to be settled on game/election day.
 
For all the talk of polls being wrong, as the final votes are being tallied (California), it looks like national polls were actually pretty accurate. Looks like the vote is going to end at roughly Clinton +2% with national average in polls having been roughly Clinton +3%. The distribution of the votes is the issue. Gore won popular vote by 0.5m and lost EC by 4 votes. It looks like HRC will win popular vote by far more and lose EC by far more.
 
Sure I agree with you with respect , for example of poller and pundit. But there is the perception that this sketpic forum is more serious. Not so much. I say it is on the same floor level as any other forum. And I am pretty sure people are aware that their "prediction" are as worth as the electron which carrier them over : not much.

Surely, then, they should not exaggerate their confidence when posting. It looks foolish.

And this is, I think, why angrysoba has reacted with uncharacteristic taunting. This is a board devoted to skepticism and critical thinking. To say that these ideals don't apply in the politics section is asinine. We ought to correlate our confidence (and our expressions of same) to the evidence at hand, whatever the topic at hand.
 
Surely, then, they should not exaggerate their confidence when posting. It looks foolish.

And this is, I think, why angrysoba has reacted with uncharacteristic taunting. This is a board devoted to skepticism and critical thinking. To say that these ideals don't apply in the politics section is asinine. We ought to correlate our confidence (and our expressions of same) to the evidence at hand, whatever the topic at hand.

Should've, could've, didn't.
 
Should've, could've, didn't.

Well, I think some posters here were reasonably cautious about their predictions, but many were obviously not -- on both sides. The Trump side happened to be right, but I don't think they were well justified in their confidence either.
 
No

Nothing wrong with making predictions

As long as you don't claim to be a clairvoyant or whatever.

That's not what I meant. My whole thing on here has been pointing out just how awful the echo chamber was around here.
 
As to the question in the OP.

A few months back I read an interesting article about polling in this election. They had stated that many people who would not admit to their support for Trump, would vote for him. Since reading it, I started believing it was a strong point. Though it was not the outcome I wanted, I felt certain he would win.

Treated myself to a bottle of tequila today. Tomorrow I will shrug, be over it and accept there is nothing I can do about it.
 

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