Re: Donald Trump has worst poll results in 15 years
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls may be larger than it seems. Here’s why.
In 2012, national polls in October suggested the presidential race was a virtual tie. The Real Clear Politics polling average gave Barack Obama a slight 0.7 point lead over Mitt Romney, but he actually won by almost 4 points. Of the final 11 national polls released in 2012, as reported on Real Clear Politics, 7 were a tie or had Romney ahead, while only 4 had Obama ahead.
Why were so many of the polls wrong? In part, because they failed to capture how minorities would vote. Unfortunately, some pollsters may be making the same mistakes in 2016 — and thereby underestimating Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls.
In 2012, many polls underestimated how many minorities would vote and how many would vote for Obama. For example, a Politico poll released the morning of Election Day said the race was tied at 47 percent each for Obama and Romney. The poll said that 62 percent of Latinos supported Obama, while the exit polls reported 71 percent, and Latino Decisions reported 75 percent. Among the “another race” category, which is mostly comprised of Asian Americans, Politico reported that 47 percent supported Obama, while the exit polls reported 73 percent, and an Asian American Decisions exit poll reported 72 percent.
And Politico was not alone. A Monmouth/Survey USA poll, which had Romney leading by 3 points, suggested that Obama would barely win Latinos, 48 percent to 42 percent.
This problem was known before election day. In the fall of 2012, Mark Blumenthal asked “Is The Gallup Poll Favoring Mitt Romney By Undersampling Minority Voters?” which came after a series of blog posts by Alan Abramowitz, one of which asked “Is Gallup Heading for Another Big Miss?” As Nate Cohn has recently pointed out, it is difficult to know the “correct” percent of voters that are white vs. non-white. Nevertheless, many 2012 polls underestimated Obama’s share of the vote by under-representing minorities’ share of the electorate and underestimating their support for Obama.
Now, in 2016, it looks like many pollsters didn’t learn much from 2012.
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls may be larger than it seems. Here’s why.