ELECTION POLLS - Misinterpreted

"The Presidential Polls Weren't As Wrong as the Interpreters" by Robert Faturechi, ProPublica 11/21/2016

The polls, of course, turned out to be wrong.

In the days since the election, reporters and pollsters have been mulling why most projections missed the extent of support for Donald Trump in the Rust Belt and the weaker-than-expected turnout for Hillary Clinton among some voter groups.

Was there a “shy Trump” phenomenon, with some of his supporters reluctant to tell pollsters they were voting for him?  Were projections thrown off by the unusually high percentage of undecideds on the eve of the election?  Was the importance of the country's demographic shift exaggerated?

Before the election, we talked to Harry Enten, a senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight, about what the polls were projecting.  We have him on again this week for a postmortem, and a discussion of how polling -- and the interpretation of polls --can be improved.

A few highlights from the conversation:

Robert:  How much did party identification, what party a voter considers himself or herself to be a part of, how much did that matter in this election and has that changed over time how much that plays a role in which candidate a voter chooses?

Harry:  So basically, party identification is the name of the game.  Donald Trump got about 90 percent of self-identified Republicans.  Hillary Clinton came pretty much doing exactly the same with Democrats.  That means that if you know how self-identified independents are going to vote and you know the percentage that Democrats and Republicans are going to make up the electorate, your poll is going to be pretty much right on.  There was a lot of talk before the election that Donald Trump would suffer among self-identified Republican voters.  That didn't really seem to be the case.  Yes, perhaps he did a little bit worse than House Republicans did among self-identified Republicans but he did well enough, and indeed, this is part of a continuing trend in American politics where party identification basically tells all.

It's a drug, as I like to say.  Self identified Republicans are pretty much always going to vote with the Republican candidate and self-identified Democrats are always going to vote for the Democratic candidate.  That's far different than it was 35 to 40 years ago when the winning candidate regularly got a lot of support from the other side.  For instance, Ronald Reagan, when he won the 1980 election, got well over 20 percent self-identified Democrats.  That's just not the case anymore.  You pretty much get your side's supporters and then some independents and you get very little support from the other side and that is part of a continuing polarization in this country of Democrats winning Democrats and Republicans winning Republicans.

Robert:  Have there been other instances in modern history where the polling has been so off?

Harry:  Well, I mean yes.  It was just not that they necessarily made the difference who was going to win and lose.  I mean in 2000, for instance, the final average of national polls taken over the final week of the campaign had George Bush winning by about three percentage points.  He ended up losing by nearly one percentage point.  That error was basically the average error that we saw across state polls.  It just so happened that George W.  Bush ended up winning in the Electoral College so it didn't end up mattering, but also was the fact that I think a lot of people understood that the race was close in a way that I think many people especially in urban centers and on the coast just couldn't imagine Donald Trump winning, and there have been errors for sure that have been even larger than what we saw this time around on the state level.

For instance, in 1980 the state polls were much further off, but again, the final state polls in 1980 indicated that Ronald Regan was going to win by a small margin.  He ended up winning by a large margin, so I don't think people were able to connect those back.  They said, "Oh, the person who was leading won, so no big error."  This time around, though, we had actually a slightly smaller error, it just went in the other direction and that's why I'm very careful not to necessarily talk about errors in binomial senses, that is, wins and losses, but rather in terms of margins.  And this time around, even if the margin wasn't as large as it was, say, in 1980, it was large enough and went in the correct direction -- or the wrong direction, depending on who you are -- to be able to flip the winner in the key swing states and ultimately the election.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 9/9/2016

"Shields and Brooks on high stakes for debate moderators, a dead heat in the polls" PBS NewsHour 9/9/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the presidential candidates' performances on NBC's “Commander-in-Chief Forum,” as well as that of the forum moderator, plus possible explanations for a tightening in the presidential polls and more.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Welcome to you both.  It's good to see you again.

Let's talk about the presidential campaign.

David, we saw the two candidates together at the same place this week, but not at the same time, at this televised forum that NBC sponsored.  What did you make of it, of their performance and what they had to say?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  I thought they both lost.  I thought America lost.  Humanity lost.  A little piece of my soul died.  I thought they…

JUDY WOODRUFF:  That bad?

DAVID BROOKS:  I thought they both did poorly.

I thought she was evasive and cross and looked like she was imperious and was angry to be challenged.  She had plenty of information, but not a lot of relatability and not a lot of humanity and not a lot of vision for foreign policy.

He (Trump), if anything, was a little worse.  He is, and as he has wont to do, said about six ridiculous things.  The admiration for Putin is of long standing.  But to me, the thing that really made me think was his claim that in Iraq we should have left a core of people to take the oil.

Now, that is — first of all, it's impractical, but it's also moral idiocy.  Maybe you're selfish and you think, oh, I got some oil and I got some guns, I should take it.  But if you go through any realm of education, which is what we try to do with people, you learn that that's called imperialism, that's called plunder.  It's morally wrong.  It ruins your credibility.

The idea that a big country is going to go out and send troops into some country to take their resources, and then the rest of the world is going to somehow trust us is just a ridiculous notion.

And so he says things that are just plainly ridiculous.  But — so that's why was so depressed.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, Mark, humanity lost as a result of this encounter or this performance this week?

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  Judy, I wasn't — it wasn't Lincoln-Douglas.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS:  And most importantly of all, I think David's point about the oil is well-taken.  I think it's valid and I think it's true.

That is not the United States.  That is pillaging.  That is the worst form of imperialism that he's describing.  It would mean leaving thousands of Americans there to protect the oil drilling.  I mean, it just is — it's indefensible on logistical, moral and political grounds.

But that aside, I think what it did — and you have moderated debates.  I have never moderated a debate, Judy, for good reason.  But I think it's raised this — Wednesday night, partially because of the unflattering press reaction to Matt Lauer's performance, has raised the stakes for the moderator, who is now put on notice, all of them, that they are not entitled in 2016 to sit there while somebody makes a statement that is factually untrue and is — can be proven false, as Mr. Trump did when he, in fact, said that he had always opposed the United States' war in Iraq.

And I just think that — it's tough to be a moderator.  But I think that, given this campaign and the questions about the integrity and honesty of the candidates, and the great doubts about them, I think that is now part of the job description.

Geesh... David, tell us how you feel.

OPINION - Shields and Rubin 8/19/2016

"Shields and Rubin on Trump's staff shift and Clinton's ‘self-inflicted' damage" PBS NewsHour 8/19/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  This week, the Trump campaign underwent possibly its biggest overhaul yet -- the candidate made major staffing changes and publicly said he regrets some past comments.  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is excelling in the polls, but her emails and foundation still haunt her.  For the political scoop, Judy Woodruff speaks with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  It's Friday, and so we turn to politics, and the analysis of Shields and Rubin.  That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Jennifer Rubin, the opinion writer for The Washington Post.  David Brooks is away this week.

We welcome you.

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF:  And good to have you back, Mark.

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  Good to be here.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, let's talk about this upheaval in the Trump campaign, phases one and two.  We have a new — Mark, a new campaign manager.  We have Paul Manafort out after some stories about his work in Ukraine.

We know that one of the new folks coming in is from Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon.  What do we make of all this?

MARK SHIELDS:  Well, first of all, Judy, every campaign is ultimately, inevitably a mirror reflection of the candidate.

The criminality and paranoia of the Nixon campaign began with Richard Nixon.  The discipline and, I would say, the insularity of Jimmy Carter's campaign began with Jimmy Carter.

And I think that's true of every campaign.

This is a year unlike any year, when voters are so angry with Washington.  They think Washington is awash in money, that money buys influence, buys access, puts the fix in.

So, what does — Donald Trump, who has an advantage over Hillary Clinton of 3-1 on someone who would change Washington, he hires the ultimate insider, the guy who gets, according to reports, various reports, got $12 million in cash for representing the pro-Russian, pro-Putin interests and parties in Ukraine.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  This is Manafort.

MARK SHIELDS:  Paul Manafort, the ultimate insider.  So, now Paul Manafort is gone, amidst charges that this is just Washington as usual, the worst kind.

And who does he bring in?  He brings in Stephen Bannon, who's never run a campaign before, who has done a good job of running a Web site.  It's been very successful.  And he lines himself up with Roger Ailes, Roger Ailes, the recently deposed chief of FOX News, the bete noire of every liberal in the country, many of whom are sort of lukewarm toward Hillary Clinton, and who has just left amidst a flurry of serious allegations about sexual harassment of women and misconduct.

So, I don't know.  I mean, it just — if personnel is policy, these self-inflicted wounds on the part of Trump are just, if not mortal, they're seriously damaging.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  How do you see all this, Jennifer?

JENNIFER RUBIN, The Washington Post:  Well, I think several strands of the campaign came together all at once.

One is this very odd relationship, maybe not even relationship, that Donald Trump has with Vladimir Putin and the number of advisers around him who are overtly pro-Russian, who have made money in Russia.  So, that's one strand.

The next strand is, there is no campaign.  As you were saying, there is no one really running the store.  There is something more to a campaign than the candidate showing up and giving a speech.  There's ad buys, there's ground game, there's all sorts of elements.

And I see none of that.  And, apparently, Mr.  Manafort didn't do that.  Maybe he tried and Donald didn't let him.  Maybe he didn't know how to do that.  So, that's the second strand.

A third is, he's behind.  And the national polls, I think, underestimate the trouble he's in.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Really?

JENNIFER RUBIN:  He is trailing in virtually every poll in every battleground.  And now we have new battleground states.  They're called Georgia and Arizona, which is unheard of.

AMERICA - Public's View on Syria Strike

"Polls:  Few Americans Believe Strike Would Dissuade Future Chemical Warfare" PBS Newshour 9/9/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Two new polls show that most Americans do not support the idea of a limited military strike by the U.S. government against Syria for conducting a chemical weapons attack on civilians.  Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center and Jennifer Agiesta of the Associated Press join Gwen Ifill to look closely at public opinion.