Statistician Nate Silver criticized pollsters during a Thursday podcast for “cheating” through a practice called “herding,” where polling results tend to align with each other.
Battleground state polling shows former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in an extremely tight race, with the former president slightly leading in five of the top seven, according to the RealClear Polling averages. Silver, on his “Risky Business” podcast, suggested polls this cycle may be inaccurate as it is unlikely they would all yield such similar results.
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“I don’t think we’re going to learn very much in this last week of the polling. In fact, I kind of trust pollsters less. Every time a pollster, ‘Oh, every state is just a plus one. Every single state’s a tie.’ No, you’re fucking herding. You’re cheating. You’re cheating,” Silver said. “Your numbers aren’t all going to come out at exactly one-point leads when you’re sampling 800 people over dozens of surveys. You are lying. You’re putting your fucking finger on the scale. I will not name names, but some pollsters are really bad about this. Emerson College. Whoops, was that recorded? Oops, sorry.”
“Insider advantage — all these GOP-leaning [firms], it’s always, ‘Oh, we’re not going out too far on a limb.’ It’s just Trump plus one in Pennsylvania every fucking single time. No, that’s not how fucking polling works. That’s not how polling is supposed to work,” he added. “So you get herding … Basically the pollsters are 50/50 in a forecast because not all base rates are 50/50, right? The pollsters are just fucking punting, except The New York Times that actually has balls, right? The pollsters are just fucking punting on this election for the most part.”
Silver noted that there are “other high-quality polls” besides the NYT that release surprising data occasionally, adding pollsters have “no value” if they “never” release surprising data.
Several pollsters recently told the Daily Caller News Foundation they are doubtful that 2024’s surveys will be accurate. While they said they are working to improve their techniques of contacting hard-to-reach Trump supporters, they noted that predicting the makeup of the electorate remains challenging, as polling methods often struggle to accurately reach groups like young men and Americans without a college degree.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten on Tuesday asserted it “would be historically unprecedented” for Trump to “outperform his polls” for a third consecutive presidential election.
“Now maybe you want to make the argument that Donald Trump himself is historically unprecedented. But what normally happens is the pollsters catch on. ‘Hey, we‘re underestimating, we’re not taking into account some part of the electorate,’” he said. “They make adjustments and I think that helps to explain why we have never seen that the same party has been underestimated three times in a row in presidential elections at least over the last 52 years.”
Silver revealed in a recent New York Times opinion piece that his “gut” tells him Trump will be victorious in November, but wrote he doesn’t “think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut.”
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Risky Business with Nate Silver & Maria Konnikova)
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