For the third time in a row, U.S. polling organizations faced challenges predicting Donald Trump’s electoral performance in key states during the recent presidential election. Several major polls significantly underestimated his support in crucial battleground areas, leading to a surprising outcome.
One of the most notable polling errors came from veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer in Iowa. In her final poll for The Des Moines Register, Selzer predicted that Vice President Kamala Harris would lead Trump by three points in Iowa. However, this forecast proved inaccurate, as Trump ultimately won the state by a large margin. According to AP News, Trump won Iowa by 13.2 percentage points, defeating Harris 55.9% to 42.7%. “The poll findings we produced for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom did not match what the Iowa electorate ultimately decided in the voting booth today,” Selzer said on Tuesday. She added that she would review data from multiple sources to understand the reason behind the discrepancy.
Another significant error came from a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, which was released two days before the election. This poll indicated that Harris had a strong lead in states like Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Wisconsin, with Pennsylvania and Michigan showing a tie between the two candidates. Yet Trump ended up either leading or winning in all these states.
Even in states traditionally seen as Democratic strongholds, polling discrepancies were apparent. According to the Xinhua News Agency, the discrepancies were particularly severe in New Jersey, where a Rutgers survey conducted in mid-October missed Trump’s actual performance by a significant margin. Additionally, Trump outperformed his polling average by 4.1% in Maryland, while Harris underperformed by 1.2%, as reported by The Independent.
James Johnson, founder of J.L. Partners, one of the few firms that accurately predicted Trump’s win, noted that many polling organizations repeated past mistakes from the 2016 election. “The key thing is people made the same mistakes they did in 2016,” Johnson told Newsweek. He explained that pollsters underestimated a segment of Trump’s base — individuals who are less engaged politically and more likely to be too busy to respond to pollsters.
Nate Cohn, The New York Times’ chief polling analyst, added that the issue might lie in structural biases within survey response rates. He noted that “white Democrats were 16% likelier to respond than white Republicans,” suggesting that polling samples may not accurately reflect the actual voter demographic. This observation was highlighted by Vox, which reported that these structural issues could contribute to the skewed polling data.
Despite the notable misses, some pollsters argued that overall polling data wasn’t entirely off. According to Yahoo News, many election models regarded the race as a toss-up, giving both candidates similar odds of winning. For instance, FiveThirtyEight and Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin each predicted a 50% chance of victory for Harris, while Split Ticket estimated her odds at 53% and The Economist at 56%.
A final Yahoo News/YouGov poll had Trump and Harris tied at 47% each among likely voters, with around 6% of voters supporting third-party candidates or remaining undecided. According to a FiveThirtyEight analysis cited by Yahoo News, U.S. presidential election polls have typically shown an average error margin of four percentage points since 2000.
Interestingly, online betting markets seemed to more accurately capture Trump’s chances in the election. Major betting platforms, including Betfair, Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, and Smarkets, had all assigned Trump better-than-even odds of winning as election day approached. The polling missteps have drawn widespread criticism and renewed questions about the reliability of the industry’s methods.
During his election night broadcast, Comedy Central host Jon Stewart highlighted the public’s frustration with polling accuracy. He humorously remarked, “I don’t ever want to hear, ‘We’ve corrected for the overcorrection with the voters,’” pointing out the ongoing challenges in accurately gauging public sentiment.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Trump held a 3.5% lead in the popular vote, although this margin could decrease as more votes are counted in populous states such as California. He has secured wins in five of the seven critical battleground states, with results still pending in Nevada and Arizona, as reported by Yahoo News.
The persistent issues in polling accuracy, particularly in relation to Trump’s support, have sparked broader questions among polling experts. These experts are examining the industry’s adaptability to shifts in voter behavior and communication patterns, especially considering that less politically engaged voters are less likely to respond to traditional polling methods.
