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Were the polls wrong or was it how pundits’ predictions wrong or how those polls were interpreted by them, the forecasters, prognosticators? RCP’s average polling showed Republicans winning the congressional generic poll by 2.5 points, the Republicans won the overall House of representative’s popular vote for the house by 2.8 points or Republicans 54,506,136 votes to Democratic 51,477,313 votes. You can’t get any closer than that. Keep in mind for a poll to be considered accurate it must fall within the margin of error or usually plus or minus 3 points of the actual results. Falling within 0.3 of a single point makes RCP and the polls very accurate.
538 had the GOP winning 217 to the Democrats 205 with 13 seats as pure tossups. Also, that the Republicans had an 80% chance of winning between 214-246 seats. The Republicans did, they won 222 seats. 538 gave the GOP an 84% chance of regaining control of the house, the Republicans did regain control. 538 also said the end results should end up with the republicans having between 205-230 seats. The 222-213 final results fell within that 205-230 prediction.
I predicted the GOP would gain between 13-15 seats, they gained 9. I was off by 4 seats. I’ll take that any day. That was better then the professional prognosticators or forecasters. Which by the way, I love to beat. Which we, the professionals and I based our predictions on the same polls.
The difference was who you assigned the 15 or so pure tossup seats to which party. I split mine 50-50 between parties. Apparently, most of the professionals decided to assign or give most of the tossups to the GOP. Sometimes they come closer, sometimes I do.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
Yes, the polls were wrong. The polls were infected with Rwing bullshyte data. There was no red wave and the Rs only took over the because of gerrymandering.
Decent Americans want nothing to do with the Rwing agenda or its platform or asinine ideas.
Rick, Nothing wrong with the polls. But if you want to believe that, fine. I could post poll after poll with all of them indicating the GOP would win the popular vote in the congressional election. the generic congressional ballot which they did. But if you don’t want to believe the hard numbers, so be it. The only senate race the polls were wrong on was Nevada which I also got wrong. They were correct on 34 out of 35. Missing one out of 35 to me is a pretty good record. Polls were predicting along with I a 50-50 senate. It ended up 51-49.
Where do you come up with the polls were wrong? Remember most of these polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. Here’s the only senate poll the pollsters had wrong. Nevada. Laxalt by 3.4 points which Cortez Masto won by 0.9 points. A miss of 4.3 points which is outside the margin of error of plus or minus 3 points by 1.3 points.
I think 34 out of 35 is doing pretty good.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
Maybe, maybe not. I just looked at the numbers and the polls were accurate. Prognosticate may have got a lot wrong. The polls provide numbers, what one does with the numbers provided is at their discretion. Is everyone saying the polls on the generic ballot was wrong? The polls said the Republicans would win the popular vote for congress by 2.5 points, they won it by 2.8. The polls were off by 0.3 of a single point. Which is amazing when the polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. To be considered accurate that gives the polls a range of between 5.5-point republican win to a 0.5-point loss. Perhaps no one understands the MOE.
The polls predicted a 50-50 tie in the senate. They got one out of 35 senate races wrong. That is accurate, at least to me. Perhaps all of these pundits and it is the pundits, the talking heads who are saying the polls were screwed up. It wasn’t the polls; it was the talking heads and predictors who may have screwed it up. I go by polls; I predicted a GOP gain of 13-15 seats. They gained 9 which I think was darn close. I’m happy and satisfied with the results. So, I missed it by 4-6 seats. Out of 435, that darn good. That close to a 99% accuracy rate.
No poll predicted a red wave. Maybe some pundits did, but I don’t pay any attention to them. When the polls, going by poll numbers only, not any talking head, when they predict and got it right in 34 out of 35 senate races, what’s was wrong with the polling? Same for the house, when they miss it my less than a single point, 0.3 of a point to be exact, what was wrong with the polls? I don’t see it. I think this has more to do with covering the talking heads, predictors butt. My opinion.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
No, just going by the results. When the polls show the correct winner in 34 out of 35 senate races, would you call that inaccurate? When the polls show the correct winner in 425 out of 435 house races, would you call that inaccurate? When the polls come within 0.3 of a single point on the popular vote, would you call that inaccurate? I wouldn’t. I’d say most polls were correct. Let the political talking heads talk all they want about inaccurate polls. But did they tell you what was inaccurate about them? Did they tell you how many races the got wrong vs. how many the polls were right? I highly doubt it. The numbers speak for themselves.
538, Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato, EP, Inside edition, Split ticket, Elections Daily, YouGov, Trafalgar, and more always have an internal or in perhaps this case, an external review in asking themselves what they got right, what they got wrong, how can they improve themselves, did they over represent republicans, democrats, under represent independents, someone else? They always go through an extensive inside review after every election. They don’t sit on their laurels. Each and everyone of them must go through a review, looking at changes in demographics, those who voted and didn’t vote, changes in party affiliation, which group or faction or demographic, age, sex, etc. of voters were more apt to vote and which were not. Normal SOP going on here.
Don’t get prognosticators, predictors, pundit confused with pollsters which seems to be what is happening. In 2016, Trump supporters holler from the roof tops the polls were wrong, they still do. But were they? The poll predicted Clinton would win the popular vote by 3.3 points, she won it by 2.1 points. Well within the margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. The important thing is the polls predicted Clinton would win the popular vote, she did. As for states, the polls got Wisconsin wrong, the late polls had Trump winning Pennsylvania and Michigan although the pundits, talking heads ignored the late polls and still predicted a Clinton win in all 3 of those states. The polls, the late polls taken within a day or two of the election got 49 out of 50 states correct. Yet, because the pundits predicted a Hillary Clinton victory, the polls were wrong, inaccurate. Bottom line, it wasn’t the polls, it was the predictors, the talking heads, the prognosticators who got it wrong. Perhaps going by their hearts, not the cold hard numbers.
Me, I look at the final results, compare them to the polls, not the talking heads or pundit’s prediction and decide for myself about whether or not the polls were accurate or not. I think they were. Of course, that just me. I think the final results show the polls were right on, perhaps their predictions were wrong. But maybe they weren’t. I didn’t see a single pundit, predictor stating the Democrats would retain control of the house. I did see four or five out of perhaps 15 say the republicans would regain control of the senate. They didn’t. 2/3rds predicted the Democrats would retain control of the senate.
Very long winded here, I go by the polling numbers, not the pundit or talking head forecasts. Look at the polling numbers, the late polls, not the early polls which I ignore vs. the final results, make up your own mind. If you still think the polls were wrong, fine, so be it. Join the Trumpers from 2016. They used that mantra of the polls being wrong to say Trump would win in 2020.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
Rick, you got me thinking, what was the pundits forecast, the average forecast, the consensus forecast for the 2022 midterm. I’m dangerous when thinking. What did the prognosticators predict? The average of all of them.
House – 232 R 205 D Missed the Republican actual gain by 10 Senate – 52 R 48 D Missed the Democrats gained one, not losing 2 missed by 3
What did the late polls show?
House – 228 R 207 D Missed the Republican actual gain by 6 Senate – 50 R 50 D Missed the Democratic gain by 1.
Actual results, House 222 R 213 D, senate 49 R 51 D. Note that neither the pundits nor the polls predicted a red wave. The definition of a wave election is the party out of power, not in control gaining 30 or more seats with regaining control of the house. The pundits predicted a gain of 19, the late polls 15. The actual gain by the Republicans was 9. The Democrats outperformed both the pundits, predictors and the late polls. Good for them.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
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