What does the FBI’s latest turnabout mean for election polls? Hint: We know even less than we did be
What does the FBI’s latest turnabout mean for election polls? Hint: We know even less than we did before
Now that FBI Director James Comey has announced, after reviewing the newly discovered emails from the Anthony Weiner investigation, that he’s sticking with his initial recommendation that Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges, an obvious question remains: Does this come too late to offset the damage caused by Comey’s earlier letter to Congress a little more than a week ago?
The short answer is that we have no way of knowing until after the votes have been counted (and maybe not even then). The long answer is that the level of uncertainty is now so high Election Day 2016 will be even more chaotic than was already destined to be the case.
As statistician Nate Silver explained shortly after Comey’s announcement on Sunday evening, “Any change will really come too late to be picked up upon by most polls.” Indeed, the polls didn’t even begin to reflect Comey’s Oct. 28 letter to Congress until a couple days after tha. Because Clinton had already started to decline from her post-debate polling high, it took a few more days for pollsters to discern whether the decline accelerated because of Comey’s announcement (which it did). This time there won’t even be a full 48 hours between the dropping of another bombshell and the moment polls open on Election Day. Because Clinton’s numbers had already started to stabilize before Sunday, we may never know whether any improvement between her poll numbers and the election results was influenced by Comey’s weekend turnabout.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/what-does-the-fbis-latest-turnabout-mean-for-election-polls-hint-we-know-even-less-than-we-did-before/
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We may never know the impact for "SURE" since her polls were trending positive before Sunday's announcement, but I know, I just know, there will definitely be a positive impact for Hillary, news spreads so fast these days. People are very tuned in.
I think it will help immensely where it matters most, in those tight battleground states.