New York Post

Pollsters – you’re all fired!

- Bob Fredericks

Thirteen polls predicted Donald Trump would win the Iowa caucuses — and all of them turned out to be wrong.

For the Democrats, most recent polls gave Hillary Clinton the edge over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — but they finished in a virtual tie.

Analyst Amy Walters of The Cook Political Report cracked Tuesday that anyone who could have predicted the results based on the polls deserves “a special pundit medal of honor.”

Trump, she said, may have drawn more voters — but “he may have brought out as many detractors as supporters.”

The polls also underestim­ated the evangelica­l turnout, which jumped from 57 percent in 2012 to 64 percent on Monday.

Most of those votes went to eventual winner Ted Cruz.

And the record turnout of 187,000 for the caucuses included many firsttime voters, whose choices are less predictabl­e.

“Polls do not generally take into account larger numbers of voters turning out. In Iowa, evangelica­ls came out and voted by a greater proportion for Cruz than Trump,” said veteran political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

The Des Moines Register’s last poll, released late Saturday, had Trump leading the GOP field with 28 percent and Cruz running second, with 23 percent, and Marco Rubio third at 15 percent.

The actual results were Cruz with 28 percent, Trump at 24 percent and Rubio with 23 percent.

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