KENTUCKY — The 2020 presidential election is quickly approaching, and some voters are looking to polls for an idea of how Election Day may play out.
But, how accurate is polling, and how should it be considered after the 2016 presidential election?
With Election Day only a week away, there are some voters skeptical of relying on polls for the outcome in this year’s election.
Josh Douglas, a Spectrum News 1 political analyst, said, “Polling is not an exact science. There’s some educated guesswork involved, and that leads to sometimes not predicting the ultimate outcome.”
According to an analysis from the elections website Fivethirtyeight.com, polls from the 2016 election presidential election were about as accurate as polls on other presidential elections have been on average since 1972.
“A lot of the polls were actually fairly accurate in predicting that Hillary Clinton had a large nationwide lead and she ended up winning the popular vote by, what, about 3 percent or so, that was fairly close to what the polls suggested,” explained Douglas.
Douglas says the polls did not illustrate President Trump’s Electoral College victory.
“What they got wrong was that Donald Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, but he won those by very small margins. I think, combined, the three states he won by about 80,000 votes," added Douglas.
He says around this time four years ago, those models didn’t account for several factors because of polling issues at the state level.
“One was some mistakes made in terms of who they polled, and basically, their Hillary Clinton voters were slightly overrepresented in some of those polls. In addition, you have sometimes the shy Trump voter, the person who wants to vote for Donald Trump but doesn’t want to admit it publicly,” said Douglas.
As we near Election Day, some polls are offering a similar narrative with Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden ahead of Trump, especially in several battleground states. Again, this raises the same question of are the polls actually correct?
“When the margins get larger, it makes the polls more accurate, and right now, we’re seeing Joe Biden with a fairly significant lead in a lot of places. And even in states like Texas which should be an easier Republican win, the polls look that race is neck in neck," said Douglas.
Douglas says it’s important to narrow the gap between perception and reality before voters put their faith in polls. He says early polling does not reflect who goes on to be president as it’s difficult to predict because of the ongoing pandemic.
“One major wrinkle in this year’s election is the pandemic and we’re voting in such a different way in many places and that may skew things in one way or another," he said.
Regardless of the election results, Douglas says it’s important to go out and cast your ballot.
“Polling should never drive whether you turn out or who you vote for. And so that’s the horse race aspect of this that sometimes can be very dangerous for the well-functioning of our election system,” explained Douglas.
Lastly, he adds that Kentuckians should avoid looking at who will win the election based on what appears to be on social media because those results feed you what you want to see.
“Trust the verified sources, trust news organizations, and not the random person who’s retweeting something. Trust election officials and the people who study this information.”
Douglas says the Electoral College’s electors will meet Dec. 14 to vote for president.
The winner must receive at least 270 of the 538 total Electoral College votes.