Chief Pollster of Trafalgar Predicts Trump Wins the Election

[EJ24]

Interesting exchange from this article:

The general consensus about why state polls of the Rust Belt were wrong in 2016 is that education was underweighted as a factor, specifically that less educated voters were much more likely to vote for Trump and were underrepresented in the samples used by pollsters. Some pollsters say they’ve since adjusted their models to fix that mistake and some now include the neighbor question. Do you think they’ll still be wrong?

"They’re not using [the neighbor question] properly. They factor it in, but they don’t understand it. They think that’s what they got wrong. They are not going to let go of this [practice] of calling a live person and asking a crazy amount of questions, 20, 30, 40 questions. That is the hill they’re going to die on. If they admit that model is now flawed and outdated, that in this modern world average people don’t participate in crazy long polls and that people lie to pollsters, if they admit that, they’ve lowered the threshold to entry into the polling game to digital, and when they do that, they can’t justify charging the crazy numbers they charge for polls. They are the Pony Express trashing the telegraph lines. They don’t believe that people are hiding their votes for Trump. Tell me this, why were they all wrong in Florida in predicting [Ron} DeSantis vs. [Andrew] Gillum, where the social desirability factor was in play, yet it wasn’t in the [Bill] Nelson race. We got both of them right. If they had fixed it, why did they all get Florida wrong? What they don’t understand is: In an age when people will lie to their doctor, lie to their priest, lie to their accountant, suddenly they turn into honest Abe when they answer a polling call? That is silly."

https://news.yahoo.com/shy-trump-voters-will-power-his-win-says-pollster-who-called-2016-race-203448623.html

[EJ24]

They go on about Florida... Did anyone ask them to explain why they utterly failed in just about every other race in 2018? Or why their prediction that the GOP would hold the House proved laughably wrong?

If you read the article, he claims that they called 2018 96% correctly, and the reason Georgia was so off was because he didn't get a list of new registered voters, which impacted the race. That's what he claims.

[EJ24]

Somebody said in another thread that there aren't really "shy" Trump voters so much as there are Trump voters who hang up on pollsters because Trump told them they are liars and crooked just like the MSM.

And working for a polling firm, I can confirm this. I'll normally call somebody and ask them if they'd like to participate in a poll about issues in their state/district, and what I find is that the majority of people who support Democrats are very open about sharing information and complete the poll.

On the other hand, I can immediately sense the Trump supporters because as soon as I ask something about participating in a poll they say things like "who's paying for this?" or "who are you affiliated with?". I've had a few say things like "this sounds like fake news" with some assorted cursing, and then they hang up on me. I've heard a LOT of this.

In other words, that social trust gap I've heard about as a theory of why Trump supporters are often hidden....there's probably something to that. They clearly dislike participating in polls. Just fair warning.

[EJ24]

Somebody said in another thread that there aren't really "shy" Trump voters so much as there are Trump voters who hang up on pollsters because Trump told them they are liars and crooked just like the MSM.

And working for a polling firm, I can confirm this. I'll normally call somebody and ask them if they'd like to participate in a poll about issues in their state/district, and what I find is that the majority of people who support Democrats are very open about sharing information and complete the poll.

On the other hand, I can immediately sense the Trump supporters because as soon as I ask something about participating in a poll they say things like "who's paying for this?" or "who are you affiliated with?". I've had a few say things like "this sounds like fake news" with some assorted cursing, and then they hang up on me. I've heard a LOT of this.

In other words, that social trust gap I've heard about as a theory of why Trump supporters are often hidden....there's probably something to that. They clearly dislike participating in polls. Just fair warning.

Interesting points. Essentially you're saying there is a "response bias" that causes polls to undersample Trump supporters. However, I remember reading that response rates in general for phone polls are pretty poor nowadays; people may not even answer the phone seeing an unknown number, may take your call as a telemarking call, etc. Could it be that the Trump supporters that refuse to answer polls are not an outsized proportion of non-responders, it's just that they yell at you and thus make a greater impression next to the people who politely hang you up?

I'm not sure, maybe. I'm just pointing out that the Trump supporters who tend to answer these polls in the first place are very hesitant and distrustful about the entire process. That leads me to believe there are many more who refuse to participate at all.  

[EJ24]

Another thing I've noticed from the pro-Trump respondents is that IF they admit on the call to supporting Trump, many of them will repeatedly ask if this is private/confidential information, ask me to hide their name in the records, I had one tell me he's heavily armed and willing to defend himself if this information gets leaked.
 
I mean that last case was pretty extreme. I'm just saying on average, they do seem extremely concerned with people knowing they answered the way they did. Which lends a little bit of credibility to the shy Trump voter thing.

AGAIN, this is all anecdotal. But I make these calls every day.

[EJ24]

Another thing I've noticed from the pro-Trump respondents is that IF they admit on the call to supporting Trump, many of them will repeatedly ask if this is private/confidential information, ask me to hide their name in the records, I had one tell me he's heavily armed and willing to defend himself if this information gets leaked.
 
I mean that last case was pretty extreme. I'm just saying on average, they do seem extremely concerned with people knowing they answered the way they did. Which lends a little bit of credibility to the shy Trump voter thing.

AGAIN, this is all anecdotal. But I make these calls every day.

In what states do you see this? I can assure you it's not the case in suburban Mississippi, much less the rural parts. I see way more Trump bumper stickers on cars that I ever saw for Romney, McCain, or even Bush, even as suburban Jackson has inched more Democratic (but basically the same) over the last 20 years.

Literally every state we poll, but we mostly poll the basic battlegrounds: MI, WI, PA, FL, GA, NC, AZ

And yeah, I'm in Alabama. I see the same thing. But we're seeing the base. We are seeing that enthusiastic 40%. And yes, they are loud and open. But the shy Trump vote theory states there's a "hidden" group of voters who put Trump over the top last time very narrowly, and could do so again because they are being undersampled in polls. I'm not sure I completely buy into it, by the way. But I can see a fair amount of evidence for the case.