CLEVELAND — Polling data has come under scrutiny yet again as unofficial election results continue to be tallied and don't exactly reflect what experts predicted. 

What You Need To Know

  • President Trump and other Republicans outperformed polling data projections for a second presidential election in a row

  • Election polling has left voters skeptical

  • Associate Professor of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University Justin Buchler says polling data was actually pretty accurate before 2016

Voters at a polling location in Northeast Ohio left satisfied with the process. 

“Very smooth. It wasn’t crowded at all. It was just in and out,” said Bryant Helton.  

But it's election polling, the practice of predicting outcomes of political races that has voters a little skeptical as people are eagerly waiting the results of election day. 

“Definitely think it’s a little odd. I think it’s causing the American people a little bit of stress that obviously most people don’t want,” said Ryan Aske.  

Justin Buchler, an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University, says polling data was actually pretty accurate before 2016. 

“Prior to 2016, polls did a very good job of telling you how elections were going to go. So, 2016 and 2020 stand out as anomalies. And the problem for political science is that anomalies almost by definition are difficult to explain.” 

He says there seems to be some issues with how polls are done, with President Donald Trump and Republicans outperforming projections for a second presidential election in a row. 

“Is that because people who weren’t going to vote for Trump did not say so? The other question is, did they fail to sample people who were going to vote Republican?" asked Buchler. “Polling organizations also overestimated support for Democratic Senate candidates in a lot of the big races, which to me suggests that it wasn’t just about Donald Trump and voters willingness to vote for Donald Trump, it suggests that there was something about the sampling methodology that they were missing Republican voters.” 

Buchler says it’s going to be hard for voters to trust polling data in the future, unless pollsters can figure out how to get a more accurate picture. 

"Right now, getting a representative sample of the electorate is very difficult. It’s hard enough getting a response to surveys because so many people simply won’t answer the phone. One of the challenges for survey research over time has been a decline in response rates.”

For months, polling averages like FiveThirtyEight predicted a tight race in Ohio. From April up until the election, the candidate didn't have more than 3 points than the other in the Buckeye State. 

Ohio was being called a "toss-up" state by political analyists across the country, but the results didn't reflect that statement at all.

Trump once agian won Ohio by the same margin he did in 2016: 8 points.

He received more than 3 million votes, compared to the 2.8 million votes in 2016.

He won all counties except Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Franklin, Summit, Lucas, Montgomery and Athens. Trump's highest margin was in Hardin County with 83% of the vote.

Some counties also changed course. Mahoning Valley, which has voted for the Democratic candidate for the last 50 years, voted for President Donald Trump.