How did the polls get Trump and Clinton election so wrong?
They were off by just a few percentage points – many of them were within the margin of error, mainly because polling is based on past elections, and groups of people that voted at lower rates in the past voted more this time, and groups that were expected to vote more for Clinton ended up underperforming for her.
Overall, there was a drop of almost two percent in what percentage of eligible citizens voted. The reason behind that is clear – millions of people (myself included) didn’t see anyone on the ballot that deserved to be president, so we didn’t vote for any of them.
Specifically, one tipping point demographic I noticed that tipped the scales for Trump was union voters. Usually, Democratic presidential candidates get a two digit lead with them, but Clinton only got 8% more than Trump. That’s a huge voting block in the rust belt, and the election was lost in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
