Professor Helmut Norpoth of SUNY Stony Brook University is back.The astute professor has a model that has correctly predicted every presidential election for 100 years.
We cited Professor Norpoth several times here in 2016 and we even chatted with him then. People laughed at us in '16 because we told you about the Norpoth model predicting a Trump win at that time. Yeah, some of you who are reading this right now may be among the ones who laughed at us then.
But Norpoth was right in 2016 when for months he insisted that he was 87% sure Trump would win. He called it eight moths before the election! This time around the good professor says the chances of a Trump win are over 90%.
BTW, all those polls mean virtually nothing. Need we remind you how wrong most major polls were in 2016? Well, here goes:
First, let's look at the final vote results with Trump the winner and up by 74 in the electoral vote while Clinton was up by 2.8% in the popular vote.
Electoral Vote (270 needed to win) Popular Vote:
Trump 306 Trump 44.4%
Clinton 232 Clinton 47.2%
Now, let's look at what the major polls and prognosticators forecast in their final predictions:
Moody's Analytics: Clinton 332, Trump 206 WRONG!
Larry Sabato: Clinton 322, Trump 216 WRONG!
Five Thirty Eight: Clinton 320, Trump 235 WRONG!
Fox News: Clinton 274, Trump 215 WRONG!
Associated Press: Clinton 274, Trump 190 WRONG!
LA Times: Clinton 352, Trump 186 WRONG!
Election Projection: Clinton 279, Trump 249 WRONG!
RCP Average: Clinton, 272; Trump 266 WRONG!
And let's look at the popular vote prognostications:
Monmouth University Poll: Clinton +6 WRONG!
NBC News: Clinton +7 WRONG!
NBC News - Wall Street Journal: Clinton +5 WRONG!
Reuters/Ipsos - Clinton +5 WRONG!
And in some of the key states, polls were wildly wrong! Though the Real Clear Politics (RCP) poll averages showed Clinton winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Trump ended up winning all three, outperforming projections by 3 points, 4.4 points, and a stunning 7.5 points, respectively. That was way, way, WAY off the mark. In Iowa, where poll averages showed Trump up by three points, he actually won by ten points.
Among all these, few polls seemed more off the mark than the Monmouth University poll, hawked endlessly during the campaign by its ubiquitous director Patrick Murray, aka "Pollster Patrick" (as he bills himself on Twitter). Murray was everywhere, until the polling data crashed on election night. “The polls were largely bad, including mine,” Murray later admitted. "In key states, the narrative driven by data was wrong," he told his local daily newspaper. "We were telling the wrong story, and that's bad."
But, wait a minute. Polls aren't about "narratives" or "telling stories." Polls are supposed to be more accurate than that. In the end, polls are about hard data, aren't they? Oh, we know that there are real people and real stories behind the data, but isn't that more the business of focus groups and more nuanced chroniclers of public opinion? And, for that matter, what people are thinking and feeling and living actually drives the data and not the other way around, right? So it would seem.
Well, maybe Murray got too caught up in the heady notoriety of the numbers chase and missed something along the way. After all, he seems like a nice enough guy and there would appear to be an explanation for everything, eventually.
We can't say with certainty how and why the polling was so off base. Maybe it was simply that the pollsters themselves drifted too far from the grassroots -- just like so many elites drifted too far from those "ordinary Americans" that Hillary Clinton said she didn't want to hear about. We do know this, however -- Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia (another prognosticator and well-known talking head) came right out and admitted that "we blew it." And then Sabato added this:
"Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa." Now, that's the proper way to fess up. Classy guy!
But, wait a minute. Polls aren't about "narratives" or "telling stories." Polls are supposed to be more accurate than that. In the end, polls are about hard data, aren't they? Oh, we know that there are real people and real stories behind the data, but isn't that more the business of focus groups and more nuanced chroniclers of public opinion? And, for that matter, what people are thinking and feeling and living actually drives the data and not the other way around, right? So it would seem.
Well, maybe Murray got too caught up in the heady notoriety of the numbers chase and missed something along the way. After all, he seems like a nice enough guy and there would appear to be an explanation for everything, eventually.
We can't say with certainty how and why the polling was so off base. Maybe it was simply that the pollsters themselves drifted too far from the grassroots -- just like so many elites drifted too far from those "ordinary Americans" that Hillary Clinton said she didn't want to hear about. We do know this, however -- Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia (another prognosticator and well-known talking head) came right out and admitted that "we blew it." And then Sabato added this:
We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win. We didn’t believe it, and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball is shattered. . . .You have to hand it to Sabato. He faced the facts and wisely headlined his post-election commentary
We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself, and we apologize to our readers for our errors.
"Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa." Now, that's the proper way to fess up. Classy guy!
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