EPIC Flagpole wrote:
eric a blair wrote:RCP final polling:
HRC: 45.5
DJT: 42.2
Spread: HRC +3.3
Final results
HRC: 48.2
DJT: 46.1
Spread: HRC +2.1
And that is all we need to say. National polls were very close to dead on perfect. 3.3 vs. 2.1 is very very close. No bias. No sampling errors. No nothing but cold clear accuracy.
You are making different arguments. You are saying the interpretation of the polls was wrong, and that some states were wrong. I would agree with you there.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.htmlWell you've proven to be pretty poor with numbers in the past (candidate debate thread), so we shouldn't be surprised here. But if you look at the national polls, they were not what most would call "accurate." They were somewhat "precise", and "more accurate than state polls", but truly not accurate by any means.
You had 10 of 11 polls showing Clinton winning. Of those 10, only 1 was at +2. And just 2 were at +3. 6 were at +4. And one was at +6.
So across those 10 polls, the average was 3.8.
The one IBD outlier comes in and shows Trump at +2. So that brings the average down to the 3.3.
3.3 is off of the actual result of 2.1 by a factor of 1.57 (or "57% larger than 2.1"). That is not at all "cold clear accuracy." The bulk of the results (the "+4") were off the actual outcome by a factor of 2. That is not good. It's better than being 5 or more off like many of the state polls, but it's truly not accurate by any definition of the word.
I hear you, but fact is, the polls said HRC would win by 3-4% and she won by 2.1%. We can quibble about how accurate that it is, but it is what it is. It came within a percent or so of being accurate. You want to say that Trump's approval rating polls are biased? Fine. Instead of 40.3 as it is now on RCP, it's 41.3. Done. You happy now? You proved a librul conspiracy?
And of course the polls were far more accurate in 2016 than in 2012.
"National polling did much better in 2016 than in 2012, when the average of the final polls in the contest between President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney was off by more than 3 points. Polls showed Obama winning the popular vote by only seven-tenths of a point, and on Election Day he captured a wider 3.9-point vote margin."