Missing the Trump wave
Journal pollster discusses why national polls were so far off
WASHINGTON — They blew it.
That’s the indisputable consensus about major U.S. polling firms that failed to predict Donald Trump’s improbable win over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. As historians and political analysts study the election for years to come, some of their research will undoubtedly center on how and why so many national polling firms failed to accurately predict the result.
One polling company that got it right — at least as far as New Mexico was concerned — is Research & Polling Inc., which conducts polls for the Journal. A Journal Poll published three days before the Nov. 8 election showed Clinton with a five-point lead in the state. The Democratic nominee eventually won the state by an eight-point margin.
The Journal asked Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling, why so many of his colleagues missed the mark and why the vote shaped up the way it did.
JOURNAL: What happened? How could so many pundits and pollsters be so wrong?
SANDEROFF: Prior to the election, most experts agreed that Donald Trump had a very narrow path to victory.
Besides needing to win the battleground states that were close but trending in his direction, such as Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, Trump had to also win some Democraticleaning Rust Belt states to pull off an upset victory. The polls said that wouldn’t happen, but Trump defied the polls and won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, catapulting him to a surprising win.
JOURNAL: What were some underlying factors contributing to Clinton’s loss that the polls didn’t pick up on?
SANDEROFF: FBI Director James Comey’s announcement 11 days before the election that he was reopening the investigation about Clinton’s email enabled Trump to get back into the race. But the underlying weakness of the Clinton campaign that ultimately cost her the election was her inability to relate to white workingclass voters regarding their frustrations and insecurities about many things, especially the nation’s stagnant economy. The polls did not pick up on the extent of this anger, which ultimately led to Clinton’s defeat in many Midwestern and Rust Belt states.
JOURNAL: Clinton supporters are quick to note that the Democratic candidate actually won the popular vote. What is the significance of that from a polling perspective?
SANDEROFF: As it turned out, the nationwide polls were not that far off the mark in measuring support levels for the presidential candidates. Although Clinton lost the Electoral College, she won the popular vote by (unofficially) 2.5 million votes, or a margin of 1.9 percent over Trump. Although these national polls were somewhat close to the actual popular vote, they tended to overestimate Clinton’s support.
The nationwide polls receive most of the media attention, but it’s stateby-state polls that really matter, given the way we elect our presidents through the Electoral College. And it was these statewide polls, in many battleground states, that underestimated Donald Trump’s support, thus creating a false impression that Hillary Clinton was going to skate to victory on election night. The inaccurate polls created a false sense of optimism for the Clinton campaign, thus impacting how they focused their resources in the Midwest and Rust Belt. For example, insufficient time and money was spent in Michigan and Wisconsin. Further, Clinton nearly lost Minnesota, even though no one realized it was even going to be competitive.
JOURNAL: Much has been made of voter reticence to admit to supporting Trump, one of the most unorthodox presidential candidates in history. Did
this affect the polling, in your estimation?
SANDEROFF: We have all heard stories about this election causing great tension among families, friends and co-workers as voters expressed their opinions about the candidates. Perhaps a few percent of the Trump supporters were reluctant to tell the pollsters of their support for him, and instead, were more likely to not participate in the survey or said that they were undecided. Given the closeness of this election, it only takes a few percent of the voters to change the outcome of the election.
There is a second possible explanation for the systematic undercount of Trump’s support. Although polls are pretty good at measuring public opinion, they are less capable of gauging voter turnout. In the general election, many of the young Bernie Sanders supporters never embraced Clinton in an enthusiastic manner, thereby impacting voter turnout among this key Democratic-leaning group. And while Clinton received a high proportion of the African-American and Hispanic vote, these
groups did not turn out at the rate that they did for Barack Obama. Lowerthan-expected participation rates among these groups could partially explain why the polls overestimated Clinton’s support.
JOURNAL: Some have drawn parallels with the Brexit vote, in which England voted to withdraw from the European Union earlier this year. What do you make of that?
SANDEROFF: It is not difficult to find some parallels between the recent Brexit election in England and the Trump victory in the United States. In both nations, there were populist movements spearheaded primarily by working-class whites, who were concerned about their respective nation’s immigration policies and the economic uncertainty brought about by globalization. The threats of open borders and free trade policies created fear in the minds of these voters. In both the Brexit election and U.S. presidential election, the clout of these antielite, populist movements were largely discounted by the establishment, and there was shock and awe on the day after the election, when it became clear
that the polls were wrong and the populist movements prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This populist insurgency is also occurring in other European countries, such as France.
JOURNAL: Trump used some harsh rhetoric during the campaign regarding Mexican immigrants and immigration policies in general. How did this affect his support levels among Hispanic voters?
SANDEROFF: Well, Hillary Clinton won the Hispanic vote by very large margins. However, according to exit polls, Trump actually received 2 percentage points more support among Hispanics compared with Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. I have spoken to many American-born Hispanics, especially Hispanic Republicans, who were not as offended by Trump’s immigration rhetoric as pundits assumed. Also, some Hispanics had different priorities, such as the economy, and were willing to look the other way on Trump’s immigration stances.
JOURNAL: What about
Catholics? SANDEROFF: Obama won the Catholic vote in
both 2008 and 2012. However, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by seven percentage points among Catholics, according to exit polls. It was primarily the white Catholics who voted for Trump by large margins, whereas Hispanic Catholics tended to favor Clinton. Trump’s vow to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice may have helped him among conservative Catholics.
JOURNAL: Paid political advertisements, especially on television, seemed to have less impact this election cycle compared with past elections. Why do you think that is?
SANDEROFF: Donald Trump used paid television advertising much less than his opponents, both in the Republican primary and the general election. For example, Jeb Bush spent tens of millions of dollars on political ads during the Republican primary and got nowhere fast. Donald Trump’s unorthodox style enabled him to attract a ton of free TV media, both on the network and cable news programs, as well as on social media such a Twitter. He rewrote the book on how to communicate with voters.