So the pre-election polling saying the electorate was going toward Biden in landslide lots was wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who could have possibly figured that out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, yeah – anyone that’s been reading this blog for the past ten years<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are three possible explanations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Evolution! <\/strong>– The pollster’s craft hasn’t caught up with the “new normal”, in a society where people legitimately fear being “canceled”, losing jobs, social standing and being targeted for violence because of their beliefs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That is simultaneously possible, and not mutually eclusive<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Incompetence!<\/strong> – The pollsters absorbed the lessons of 2016, where they actually did a little better than they did this year…<\/p>\n\n\n\n …and learned nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Never Ascribe to Incompetence What Can Be Chalked Up To Malice<\/strong> – I’m going to present three facts and a conjecture:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fact 1 – On December 1, 2016, representatives of the New York Times and Washington Post newsrooms went on WNYC radio\u2019s \u201cOn the Media\u201c program (syndicated on NPR) and said, In as many words, that was time to change the rules of journalism<\/a>. It was time to move past \u201cpassing the facts on to people and letting them make up their own minds\u201d to \u201cDenormalizing Donald Trump\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fact 2 – in 1986, a UCLA psychology professor, Dr. Mehrabian, showed the existence of a \u201cbandwagon effect\u201c; when polls showed that a candidate had no chance of winning, \u201cswing\u201c voters tended to stay home or vote for someone else<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n