Pre-election polls in 2020 had the largest errors in 40 years

[Jim__]

From phys.org

Public opinion polls ahead of the 2020 election were the most inaccurate in a generation, according to Josh Clinton, Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair and professor of political science, who recently served as chair of a special task force convened by the American Association for Public Opinion Research specifically to evaluate polling. The task force found that polling during the two weeks before the election overstated support for then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden by 3.9 percentage points, which was the largest polling error since 1980 when support for Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter was overestimated by 6 percentage points. The presidential election between Biden, the eventual winner, and incumbent president Donald Trump was much closer than polling had indicated. A report detailing the task force's discoveries and conclusions is here

"This discrepancy is across the board. It's not a Republican polling problem or a Democratic polling problem," said Clinton, who is also a senior election analyst for NBC News' Decision Desk, which projects election winners as polls close in each state. "We found that, regardless of party and regardless of how they were done, sizable polling errors occurred for presidential races as well as senate and state-level races."

As chair of the task force, Clinton offered his Vanderbilt students an opportunity to participate in meaningful and exclusive analysis of polls. In his spring and fall 2020 courses on elections, Clinton's students helped analyze poll results for the task force report as they learned about previous elections. This unique opportunity to do real-life work gave students a taste of what professional pollsters do.

...

Though the exact causes of the discrepancy are still being determined by the task force and other researchers, the analysis pointed toward several possible explanations. An unexpectedly large voter turnout may have contributed to polling error, given the historical level of turnout and the "perfect storm" of current events—a worldwide pandemic that caused a flagging economy and record levels of unemployment, a wide assortment of new voting methods, and increasing polarization in the political sphere. As a result, in 2020, in addition to the usual voters and newly eligible voters (those who just turned age 18 and newly naturalized citizens), there were many non-regular voters who cast ballots.

more ...

[Pantagruel]

1. Racists avoid talking to pollsters

"The task force's analysis showed that the greatest errors occurred where Trump support was largest."

[stillcool]

2. funny how they use exit polling to determine

fraud, but not here. And of course, Republicans won't respond when asked who they voted for, only Democrats do that.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Election_verification_exit_poll
Around the world, exit polls are used as a standard of election verification. Whenever there's a disparity between exit poll results and election results, we suspect that the disparity may be due to election fraud. In the US, however, media exit pollsters have insisted that their polls are not designed (and therefore cannot be used) to detect fraud. Rather, their purpose is to project winners of races and provide material for news coverage.[1]

[PortTack]

3. pollsters are using outdated methods and coming up with inaccurate results ...surprise!!

Yes, they try to pass it off on other things. It’s not just the last election, but at least the last 3. I for one will never take anything too seriously again when looking at polls until such a time when they find ways of more accurately predicting outcomes.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Those responding to poll takers were fudging their responses from every side of the issues...

I think people are getting sick and tired of polls in general, so everybody lies or fudges their responses. Kind of a backlash against the poll takers.