Five of the Democratic Party's six biggest polling firms are admitting "major errors" in their 2020 polling data, with "no consensus on a solution." A.
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A group of competing Democratic pollsters came together and offered a mea culpa for their poor performance in 2020, admitting there were “major errors” in their polling, in part, due to former President Donald Trump himself.
“2020 was an ‘Oh, s - moment for all of us,”
said one of the pollsters involved. “And I think that we all kinda quickly came to the point that we need to set our egos aside. We need to get this right.
The pollsters admitted that together they “saw major errors and failed to live up to our own expectations.” But while they identified some reasons for the errors, they also admitted there was “no consensus on a solution.”
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A group of Democratic Party pollsters acknowledged “major errors” in their 2020 polling in an autopsy-like report discussing how they ended up wrong for the second presidential election in a row.
The firms, ALG Research, GBAO Strategies, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, Global Strategy Group and Normington Petts, said that they “failed to live up to expectations” in the joint report, but offered no comprehensive answer as to why they overestimated Democratic margins ahead of Election Day. The groups did, however, offer possible reasons as to why its polling was so inaccurate.
The groups first cited their underestimation of voter turnout, especially among low-propensity voters.
Why the polls were off in 2020
Updated 12:28 PM ET, Tue April 13, 2021 (CNN)President Joe Biden won the 2020 election as polls suggested he would. His victory, however, ended up being tighter nationally and in a number of swing states than expected. The question of why that happened has dogged pollsters since the election.
On Tuesday, a number of Democratic pollsters (ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group and Normington Petts) put out a statement as to why they think their internal polls were off. It jibes with a lot of the analysis I and others have said publicly.
Democrat Polling Firms Admit ‘Major Errors’ in 2020 Election Polls
A group of top Democratic Party pollsters released a public statement Tuesday acknowledging “major errors” in their 2020 polling, while venturing several theories they believe may account for the blunders.
“In 2020, our industry saw major errors and failed to live up to our own expectations,” said the statement by ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group, and Normington Petts.
Most preelection polls ahead of the November election overstated then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s lead over then-President Donald Trump, and in some states incorrectly predicted that Biden would win or that the race would be close. This sparked critical post-election media commentary, with some asserting that “polling seems to be irrevocably broken,” while others argued that “the polling industry is a wreck, and should be blown up.”