BigDataFr recommends: What the 2016 Presidential Election taught us about polling, predictions
[…] It’s been nearly two weeks since Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, becoming the country’s 45th president-elect. Trump claimed victory with the majority of the electoral votes (290 to Hillary Clinton’s 232); Clinton won the popular vote (61,318,162 votes to Trump’s 60,541,308).
As election night wore on and votes were counted November 8, it was clear the tallies would not add up to earlier poll (New York Times Upshot, FiveThirtyEight) predictions of a win for Clinton. What began as a relatively quiet night for those sporting red Make America Great Again caps at a Trump party in Midtown Manhattan would turn into a boisterous celebration. Democrats, on the other hand, grew increasingly somber as the hours passed and they waited for their leading lady to address them at Manhattan’s glass-ceilinged Jacob Javits Center. She would never take the stage. Half an hour after the chair of Clinton’s campaign told everyone to “head home and get some sleep,” Clinton conceded the election to Trump by phone.
We’ve written on this site before about the pitfalls in polling, but how could the polls that night – and just days before – have been so off? It’s a question that’s left some scratching their heads. […]
Source: stats.org