As it talked about in the article this week Trump was weak
when it came to the polls throughout the race, this could have been due to many
factors but we will take a closer look at just a few. First off many of Trumps
supporters were white voters without a college degree, there is nothing wrong
with that except the fact that many of them may not have been reached or
calculated well in the polls. I know some people in my hometown that don’t even
own a phone. Another could have been his racial and gender comments during the
election. If polls were taken recently after one of his “slip of the lips” then
I would expect his numbers to take a significant hit. Last and not least there
is always, whether we admit it or not, scorer bias. Many people didn’t want it to
even be a realistic possibility that Trump could be our president, well I bet
they aren’t laughing now.
The first thing
I think the polls got right about Trump was consistency. The poll numbers may
have been low but at least most of the polls matched. Except for on November 1st,
2016. Trump beat out Clinton by one point in the ABC/Washington Post Poll.
This was played off as a huge victory by the trump campaign even though winning
one poll means nearly nothing at all. In
the USA Today poll Trump was trailing by a little over 3 percent like he was in
most of the other popular polls around. The polling for Trump could have been
improved greatly I think if they tracked the demographics that they were
reaching and showed that in the poll results. Trump clearly did something right
in the end so what happened when it came to the polls is the real question?
You cannot tell me demographics doesn't play a part when most of your trump supporters were like this man, Adam Calhoun, and his patriotic son!
As for
whether or not the polls have an effect on the race overall I believe they do.
Even though the only purpose is to show where a certain candidate stands in a
certain area it lets people see what their fellow American or State residents
are thinking. We don’t like to think we can be influenced or swayed in this way
but it is just a normal human need to fit in. This could help to sway undecided
voters in more ways than most even realize.
However,
the biggest issue with polling is its severe limitations. I mean first of all
you aren’t even coming close to reaching the true demographics of an area, you
are simply receiving the answers of those that wished to respond. If one
demographic gives the majority of the responses your results are already
worthless. Also people don’t feel obligated to report their opinions to polls
since they are extremely unofficial.
The last
thing I want to touch on is how I would have run my own poll to analyze Trumps
chances. First I would have worked extremely hard getting small amounts of
people from each demographic and gender so everyone was represented. For
questions I would have asked positive questions like which person do you
believe is better equipped to lead the country, and the questions would have
always been asked while the person was alone. Then I would have asked for
simple statements on who they planned to vote for at this time. This is all
very basic but the even demographics and gender ratios would have changed the
results in a huge way in my opinion.
As the
provided article said even Trumps own campaign had his chances around 30
percent for him winning. Talk about low-balling your candidate’s chances. He
did lose the popular vote, which could have been the reason for such low
polling numbers but polls need to shift to show what really matters, the
electoral college numbers, but as many people said to all of America.
But yet what really happened in American.
The photo at the bottom of your page saddens my heart ever so slightly when I see it. That Cheetos Puff with that wig got lowballed in the numbers because he was a staff that didn't even truly support him. I loved your article but I have to disagree with one section, I truly believe that polling goes not make a change when it comes to the actual voting. You are correct they give people a snapshot but I honestly believe that if you understand a single lick about politics that you will not be swayed by polls. They are all almost as biased as Fox News and Al-Ja-zeera get.
ReplyDeleteI really thought your blog post was very informative. Very well written! In the beginning of your article you talk about how Trump was coming up weak in the polls. I believe that was due to the possible embarrassment a lot of his voters would have to go through if they publicly supported him. A lot of the debatable comments Trump made would not really affect the polls. In one my classes my teacher said stuff like that is only relevant for a couple weeks and makes no real difference in polling numbers. Polls have no effect on the race; most people have their mind made up before the election season even starts.
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