That crazy Conway

AVI posted links to a number of old articles, many from 2016.  I particularly enjoyed the WaPo October 2016 article dripping scorn on Trump's ridiculous PR team and their ignorant, probably insincere disregard of the prevailing wisdom in the "lamestream media."  The article ends with this taunt:
On Nov. 8, I fully expect Trump TV to say that Trump actually won. After all, Conway said they would. Unequivocally.
Conway's electoral map predicted Clinton would take California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and New Mexico. She assigned toss-up status to Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

And what happened? Conway was right about all the definitely-Clinton and definitely-Trump states. What's more, she didn't do badly on the toss-ups. Clinton took Conway's toss-up states of Nevada, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Trump took the toss-up states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

The WaPo's own "realistic" map blew not only the predicted states but the toss-ups.  It assigned "weak Clinton" and "weak Trump" status to six states; Trump took them all home on election day. WaPo assigned toss-up status to only three states, all bagged by Trump in the end.

The final taunt turned out to be the best prediction in the piece.

How about this year?  Are the polls any more competent?  They sound a lot like the 2016 polls, just as the reports of amazing rally crowds remind me of 2016.
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3 comments:

  1. raven2:10 PM

    They have learned. They will concentrate fraud in the swing areas of the critical swing states.
    After the election, 1/2 of the population is going to believe they won,against all odds, because the other side cheated. The other half is going to believe they lost, because of fraud. Either way, half the population is going to believe the vote was illegitimate. The revelations of speech suppression by the tech giants add fuel.
    How do you govern a country when half the population think elections no longer represent the will of the people?

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  2. Grim2:40 PM

    The polls have been consistently wrong abroad, too: in Australia, on Brexit, and elsewhere. The big rallies are one sign; the massive donations from members of the public are another. For whatever reason, the data no longer line up with the results.

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  3. J Melcher8:35 PM

    I intend to mislead, equivocate to, and distract any polling agency that happens to choose me to help forecast the election results.

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