Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Washington Post blog says Trump may be right, polls underestimate his support

If the Washington Post Fix blog is right about the polls being wrong, or possibly wrong, then Donald Trump may be a shoe-in next week.
Now that we've flushed out that rabbit hole, though, we should note another way in which the polls could be off. Trump's "hidden vote" could manifest itself in heavier-than-expected turnout from people who don't vote very often.

When a slew of national polls came out last week showing the race all over the map, we pointed out that pollsters have to make guesses about who will and won't come out to vote. After all, if you poll 600 first-graders and get their views on the presidential race, it doesn't really matter much, given that they can't vote. The "likely voters" in one poll might not look much like the likely voters in another.

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