Pollsters didn’t predict Trump’s 2016 victory due to failure to account for uneducated voters – Quinnipiac University Poll President

Nov 06, 2020 News

By Kemol King

Quinnipiac University Poll Director, Dr. Doug Schwartz, PhD.

You might have heard that public trust in US Presidential Election polls has waned a little, hence, a reluctance to believe the general consensus that Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden will win the Presidency.
The most recent Quinnipiac University Poll, for instance, shows Biden leading Republican nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump by 11 points.
Pollsters had largely failed to predict a Trump victory in the 2016 US Presidential Election, as they mostly had the then 2016 Democratic nominee, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, down as the winner, leading up to E-Day. Though Clinton won the popular vote by clinching three million more than Trump, the businessman went on to secure the presidency after getting the majority of Electoral College votes.
Director and Vice President of Quinnipiac University Poll, Dr. Doug Schwartz, PhD said that the inaccurate predictions had to do with the fact that they underestimated White voters without a college degree, who made up a key part of Trump’s support base.
Dr. Schwartz addressed journalists from around the world during a press briefing on polling and analytics on October 15. He said methodology is a very important indicator of the accuracy of a poll, and that there were polls in some key states that missed the mark.
“A major reason was that late deciders in those states wound up supporting Trump.” Schwartz explained. “Another reason was that some pollsters underestimated white voters without a college degree. It’s significant because these voters supported Trump and they were under counted in some polls in important states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where Trump won by a very narrow margin.”
This meant that White voters with college education were overrepresented. Schwartz said that this was not the only reason the polls were a little off, but that pollsters have reassessed their methods, and are now weighting by education.
“Quinnipiac methodology has factored in the breakdown of education groups for years,” Dr. Schwartz was keen to note. “So, we didn’t have to make a change to our weighting the way some other pollsters did.”
Weighting makes sure each demographic is accurately represented as a percentage of the population.
The Quinnipiac University Poll VP said that polls that have made changes to weight their work by education will be more reliable.

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