This story meant Clinton lost Wisconsin in 2016 despite virtually all polls there showing here with a commanding lead. The 2016 election was a story driving new populist energy for Trump among traditional non-voters that the polls weren’t capturing. These were the people that got 2016 right. This game is driven by clever observers out there who look at the stories that are motivating people to get out and vote rather than bothering with any polls. They are also honest in expressing degree of uncertainty.Ĭredible voices indicating this is still a tight raceīut the chief source of my discomfort with my own call for a Blue Wave is in the “narrative game” of this election. Still, I do think 538 is often a bit dry and polls-only focused, and is sometimes uninspiring in its coverage of the intangibles, or “narrative” that I discuss below, even if they are masters of pulling out interesting twists in the polls and at differentiating poll quality.

I think the 538 outfit actually did a credible job in 2016 with the polling information it had on hand and actually called for more uncertainty than most other mainstream observers did.

This time, Trafalgar is again predicting a Trump victory and a real mudslinging has developed between 538’s Silver and Cahaly (must see clip, especially the nuances on the Michigan race. Trafalgar even predicted the exact outcome of the 2016 election electoral college margin. To take an example, an engrossing dogfight has broken out between 538’s Nate Silver and Robert Cahaly, the leader of the Trafalgar Group polling outfit, the “only one that got it right” in its polls of the Midwest states that sent Trump over the top in 2016. In this day and age of the politicization of everything, however, charges are flying from all directions that the polls themselves are poor measures of the reality on the ground and that polling outfits reporting results are themselves politically charged. I have down into specific large scale individual polls as well for some of my views. Readers of my recent Election Countdown posts will know that I have often base some of my conviction in the current state of the race on Nate Silver’s poll of poll measures. Pollster dogfight – are the pollsters getting it wrong again? Today, I reveal that I maintain a considerable background level of discomfort with my high probability forecast for a strong Democratic showing in this election and discuss again what happens in a “contested election” scenario. This is the latest in a daily series of articles I am running through Election Day on Tuesday and for as many days after that day that are necessary until a result is clear.

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