Why the US Polls and Election Results are different

In some states the polls and election results told very different stories.

Video by Amany Abubaker

Multimedia by Jacob Mack

By Gabrielle Laws

The way polls are conducted could have influenced poll results for the 2020 Presidential race, said Kyle C. Kopko, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown College.

Kopko said, “If your senior citizen you may or may not have a cell phone, and a lot of survey companies, you know, might rely on text messaging, or you know, something along those lines, something that’s a little more high tech, which is going to also, you know, sway the sample towards younger voters who might be more likely to support Democratic”.

In White House Press release on Nov. 5, 2020, Donald Trump said “They got it knowingly wrong. We had polls that were so ridiculous, and everybody knew that at the time. There was no blue wave that they predicted.”

After the 2016 elections, it was debated the possibility that “shy Trump voters” failed to disclose their preference for Trump, could be a reason for why the polls were off.

Some polling firms like Trafalgar group say that they have pioneered methods to combat “Social Desirability Bias”.

Where the polls were wrong

(Sourced: BBC News)

RealClearPolitics is a media group dedicated to “providing our readers with better, more insightful analysis of the most important news and policy issues of the day”.

Leading up to the US presidential election, they compiled a map with the average result of multiple polls conducted across the US.

The map showed that Biden was a few percentage points ahead of President Donald Trump. 

Preliminary election results showed the candidates are less than a percentage point apart.

According to a RealClearPolitics average, the polls showed that Biden could win Wisconsin at multiple percentage points ahead of Trump. 

RealClearPolitics predicted Biden would win Florida by nearly a full percentage point. 

Instead, Trump won the state by a few percentage points.

Story map comparing election results to poll results (Jacob Mack/RSJ)