With a week to go before the US Presidential elections, Real
Clear Politics poll of polls has Clinton leading Trump by 2.2%. But scratch the
surface and you see that the margin is depleting. In the last 5 polls published
4 are within the margin of error meaning technically they are a “dead heat”.
Here is the thing, I think the opinion polls are going to be
proven wrong. Either Clinton will win by a big margin i.e well above 5% or
Trump will win. Either way it wont be “too close to call”.
Here are five reasons why the polls will be proven wrong
1. Opinion polls have proven unreliable around the
world – The polls got it all wrong in the elections in the UK, in Israel and
just last week in Iceland. In Iceland, the anti establishment Pirate party was
predicted to win but it did’nt. If you are looking for alternatives as a
signpost here are two
(a) The UK bookies correctly predicted BREXIT.
Currently at Ladbrokes, the split of bets is 80-20 in favour of a Trump Win.
(b) In line with the opinion polls, the search for “move
to Canada” which peaked when Trump won the primaries has surged in the past 7
days. Similarly, the search for the two candidates is now in a tie.
2. American Polls are faulty to start with – The
sample sizes of the polls hover around 1100. A poll of that size will surely
struggle to represent the diversity of the US. Indeed the New York Times
correctly pointed out how one 19 year old black man in Illinois was skewing the
poll results. Essentially his demographic is
under represented in the panel and hence his voting intention (to vote
for Trump) was upweighted significantly !!! Does it reflect the thinking of all
of his demographic?
3. People lie to pollsters – That’s unfair to
people who take the time to answer questions in a survey but it fair to say that when
answering a human being “political correctness” plays a role. The polls
conducted over telephone (Clinton winning) have a different response to those
conducted online (Trump winning). Political correctness would explain the
difference in the two polls. Remember on election day its just “you and your
ballot in complete anonymity”. What role will political correctness play on the
8th of November is something polls cant factor in.
4. Will they vote? – One problem that all pollsters
wrestle with it is determining who will actually show up on election day. Will
the Clinton supporters come out in droves now that “its not a done deal”. Will the
independents who would otherwise have voted for Clinton stay at home? The
outcome of the election could well nigh depend on the voter turnout and how
this splits across demographics.
5. Mood of the electorate” – You would expect voting
to be a rational decision but since it is human beings casting their ballots emotions do play a huge role. It has been proven that the “mood of the
electorate” can impact the outcome of the elections. Things like sporting
events could impact this “mood”. With the rise of the social media we live in a
“there are no lies, it’s a matter of perspective” world. So it is quite likely
that the mood will be impacted by “news” or even “meme-able” headlines. Will
there be more emails or Russian connection between now and next Tuesday?
