One of the Most Accurate of Polls in 2016 -- The USC/L.A. Times poll saw what other surveys missed: A wave of Trump support

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES

URL: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-usc-latimes-poll-20161108-story.html

by: David Lauter


For most of the last four months, the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak tracking poll has been the great outlier of the 2016 campaign -- consistently showing a better result for Donald Trump than other surveys did.

In light of Tuesday’s election returns, the poll now looks like the only major survey to see the wave coming.

Most of the summer and fall, the poll's results have been about 6 percentage points more favorable to the Republican than the polling averages. As of Tuesday morning, the poll's final forecast for the election showed Trump leading by a little over 3 points, 46.8% to 43.6%.

The poll’s findings caused dismay — even outrage — among some readers, especially Democrats, who have denounced it and often criticized The Times for running it.

But just as four years ago the poll was one of the few that did not underestimate President Obama’s support, it seems as though it may have been on its own in not underestimating Trump’s.

Although the final popular vote margin won’t be known for days as late votes are counted in California and other states, it’s clear that the poll was at least as accurate as the majority of surveys that found Clinton ahead by 4 or 5 points.

The biggest difference between the Daybreak poll and most other surveys involves what pollsters refer to as weighting, the process of adjusting a poll's data to make sure it properly represents the diversity of the population. The Daybreak poll uses a weighting plan that is more complicated than most other surveys — perhaps too complex, critics said.

As Ernie Tedeschi, a Washington-based economist and former Treasury Department official, has shown, if you take the Daybreak poll's data — which USC made available to the public — and weight it more in line with the usual system pollsters use, you get results that largely match the polling averages.

But as Sean Trende, the political analyst at Real Clear Politics, wrote of the Daybreak poll several weeks ago, "truth is not decided by committee." The fact that the Daybreak poll was weighted differently doesn't mean that it was weighted incorrectly, it just means that it is different.

Some of the worst failures of polling have come about because pollsters, whether deliberately or not, converged on a single view of an election, in what is often referred to as "herding."

With all the challenges that polling faces, it's important to test different methods and approaches to surveying public opinion. Some tests will work, others won't, but the only way to know is to try.

In addition, regardless of which poll was right about the standing of the two candidates, the Daybreak poll, as Tedeschi and others have found, has produced a lot of useful data.

The poll told us in August, for example, that Trump's chance of winning depended on mobilizing white voters who had sat out the 2012 election — something that he clearly has succeeded in doing in several key states.

Because the poll represented the views of those voters more than other surveys, it "presents something of a best-case scenario for Trump," we wrote then, noting several reasons why Trump might not be able to mobilize the voters he needed.

The poll also told us about how much Trump's strength depended on the votes of men, and about his edge earlier this fall among voters who were most certain about their vote.

One other thing the poll told us might bear on why Clinton has performed so much worse on election day than many preelection polls had suggested.

The poll asked respondents whether they were comfortable talking to people about their vote. The survey found that Trump supporters reported themselves as being slightly more comfortable than Clinton voters in talking to family members and acquaintances about their choice.

But Trump voters were notably less comfortable about telling a telephone pollster about their vote. Voters who backed a third-party candidate were even less comfortable responding to a poll. Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote.

That doesn't necessarily mean that a poll conducted online, the way the Daybreak poll is, necessarily will be more accurate than polls conducted by phone. But it is yet another indication that polling needs more, diverse ways to look at public opinion, not fewer.

[SirLinksALot]

The other Poll winner ( for the past 4 election cycles already ) was IBD/TIPP which CONSISTENTLY showed Trump leading as opposed to the other major polls.

IBD/TIPP's final prediction was Trump by 2%

[dfwgator]

There was probably more Party cross-over votes this election than any since the "Reagan Democrats".   

[SirLinksALot]

The other winner was Professor Helmut Norpoth, from Stony Brook University in New York State, whose election model has correctly predicted the outcomes of the last five presidential elections.

See here: http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/10/22/trump-will-win-election-professor-long-track-record-predicts

[Right_in_Virginia]

The USC/L.A. Times poll saw what other surveys missed: A wave of Trump support 

The evidence was there for all to see in every rally--the lines, the 5:00 am arrivals, the Midnight Specials, the enthusiasm.  It was all there. 

[SirLinksALot]

The evidence was there for all to see in every rally--the lines, the 5:00 am arrivals, the Midnight Specials, the enthusiasm.  It was all there.

My friend was in Philly at the final Hillary rally where celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi, Jay and even Bruce Springsteen showed up for free performances. Barack and Michele Obama were there too. It was a sizable crowd. But when the free concert was over... my friend told me that a large number LEFT before Hillary could give her speech. 

[montanajoe]

I don't think any of the polls showed Hilliary winning the popular vote and losing the electoral...

[cato potatoe]

Keep in mind Hillary is likely to win the popular vote by a point or so.  The closest poll I see is ... Rasmussen.   

State-level polling clearly favored Hillary in the midwest, and the parts of the south where midwesterners moved, but was remarkably close elsewhere.  The post mortem will be interesting.

[TomSea]

Amazingly, The People's Pundit website looks fairly off-the-wall as a website, but when it appeared Trump was really lagging, one could look at their poll.

They seemed fairly accurate too.

https://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/latest-polls/election-2016/us-presidential-election-daily-tracking-poll/

[bolobaby]

This is true. Trump not only didn't win the popular vote, more than 50% of Americans didn't vote for him, just like the primaries.

I get it, but it underscores that this is no Reagan wave. Trump has to work hard to get his favorables up.

But - see my responses elsewhere - I'm pretty confident that the leftists will allow the sovereign debt crisis to finally come to head during a Trump presidency. Which will REALLY make things rough for Trump.

Then again, I was also pretty confident there was no way Trump could win, so "we'll see."

[ABX]

I don't think any of the polls showed Hilliary winning the popular vote and losing the electoral...

True. I saw some speculation but no poll can claim they called it.

[pjohns]

Well, it is now all over.  And I will readily admit that I was mistaken. 

I thought  that Donald Trump might--might--win the popular vote; but that Hillary Clinton would probably win the electoral vote.  Instead, it looks to be just the opposite:  Hillary Clinton may win the popular vote (it should be very close there); but Donald Trump easily won the electoral vote--which is what really matters. 

Of course, if he does not also win the popular vote--and he would have to settle for a plurality; an outright majority does not seem possible--, he cannot really claim a mandate; and that could hamper his efforts to govern effectively. 

This is not to say that I am the only one to miss this call:  Larry Sabato (whom I greatly admire and respect; he has a 98 percent accuracy rate) is today running a headline that says, "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa."

[Free Vulcan]

I never bought that Trump was out of this race. Said so here. That was the media full court press in action. I know mojo when I see it and Trump had it. Hillary was slow leaking like an old balloon. Agreed with Nate Silver that there were too many undecideds at the last minute to poll accurately and it was anyone's to win. So it was.