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WashPost: Polls May Be Underestimating Hillary Clinton's Lead
Monday, June 20, 2016 09:16 AM
By: Cathy Burke
Polls are underestimating Hillary Clinton's lead, failing to capture how minorities vote, The Washington Post reports.
In an analysis, professors of political science Gabriel Sanchez and Alan Abramowitz notes that in 2012, surveys miscalculated both how many minorities would vote and how many would vote for President Barack Obama.
"Now, in 2016, it looks like many pollsters didn't learn much from 2012," the professors write.
"Polls that put more care and effort into understanding the minority electorate will likely be the ones who accurately estimate the national presidential vote in November."
For example, the professors write, national polls that interview Latinos only in English show that 29 percent to 37 percent of Latinos will support GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump — better even than 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney fared.
The polls also show Trump doing as well or better among Asian-Americans, compared to Romney. Some polls even estimate that 20 percent to 25 percent of blacks support Trump.
But the professors says one poll, however, Survey USA, "arguably [is] underestimating support" for Hillary Clinton among Asian Americans, Latinos and blacks.
"The point is not to pick on this particular poll, but to point out that the flaws in polling methodology in 2012 are reemerging now," the analysts write. "This affects not only individual polls but also polling averages, which are aggregating polls with different samples and methodologies and which underestimated Obama's vote share in 2012."
This year, America is "even more diverse," the professors write.
"Pollsters need to take steps to more accurately estimate the political attitudes and behavior of black, Latino and Asian American voters," they write. "Polls that are conducted only in English and that do few or no callbacks to try contact hard-to-reach populations are not going to accurately reflect the American electorate."
And "polls that are conducted via online panels need to ensure that they are not under-representing minority voters with less formal education and lower incomes," they add.
"Finally, pollsters should take steps to make sure each racial subgroup in their poll is weighted to match the American Community Survey's estimates for that particular group, not just their national sample overall."
