2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt has been repeatedly pointed out that the only way Obama will lose is if the polls are biased
but there is only one reasonable historical way polls have been biased. It has been when you have had a Bradley affect. Well there is only one historical candidate this time, and he is Romney. Romney would be the first Mormon President and many of the GOP's evangelical base consider Mormons to be cultists on par with Hare Chrishnas or Jehovahs Witnesses. If the polls are biased, I think a case can be made that there is a much greater chance that they are biased in favor of Romney than biased in favor of Obama. Yet another reason to be confident in Obama's victory.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)The people likeliest to be left out of polling may well break heavily Obama.
Democratopia
(552 posts)Plus over-representation - the Republicans are increasingly dependent on older whites, especially males - how many have passed on in the four years since the last election.
ItsTheMediaStupid
(2,800 posts)Or write in Jesus, or vote libertarian, but they don't want their neighbors, wife, kids, rednecks down the block to know they didn't vote R in 2012.
Democratopia
(552 posts)if suddenly Micky Mouse polling organizations appeared with the intention of making one side look better than it really is.
Thrill
(19,178 posts)because the majority of the polls are LV models. Where they basically cut half his leads from the RV poll numbers. Because they always assume Black, Hispanic, and young voters won't actually vote
Democratopia
(552 posts)They go because others are there - friends, family, fellow church members etc.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)If they are inaccurate, we should expect a bell curve with equal error in both directions, not a systematic problem with statistics. One problem all pollsters might encounter is inability to phone all segments of the populace equally.
dsc
(52,162 posts)but the likelihood of it is frankly very, very small. In essence Silver says it is about 8.5%, I think it is likely even lower than that.
There's no way the polls are wrong. We're all PROUD OBAMA VOTERS, and who wouldn't be!!!