Demographics and the Electorate

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think this thread is going to be important ...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Question - is there any analysis on what the polls projected turnout is? Obviously a single poll is unreliable, but if you aggregate some you should get a picture of what pollsters are predicting.

This is Reuters (who I can only praise for their willingness to share data)

That data makes no sense at all... I mean, wouldn't that suggest that turnout was largely stable 08-10-12? When it wasn't at all. I mean 2014 makes sense in relation to the data, considering 2010 turnout was only slightly better than 2014... Unless I'm completely misreading this.

Is it just me or is this an assumed projection...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Question - is there any analysis on what the polls projected turnout is? Obviously a single poll is unreliable, but if you aggregate some you should get a picture of what pollsters are predicting.

This is Reuters (who I can only praise for their willingness to share data)

That data makes no sense at all... I mean, wouldn't that suggest that turnout was largely stable 08-10-12? When it wasn't at all. I mean 2014 makes sense in relation to the data, considering 2010 turnout was only slightly better than 2014... Unless I'm completely misreading this.

Is it just me or is this an assumed projection...

The graph is RCP. They haven't used midterm data at all so that's misleading. It's been extended from 2012 to 2016 using Reuters turnout model.

That's even more ridiculous, then. They're comparing the final results, based on the cross-tabs in one poll, dependent current subjective LV screens?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

And then there's the question...even if the exit poll #s are biased in a way that the Census #s are not, does that really mean that we should be weighting the current round of telephone polls to match the Census #s?  The telephone polls could have the same bias that the exit polls have.

If it's a response bias that's an issue in the exit polls, then we should certainly be weighting them to match the census; that's why pollsters do demographic weights.

If the bias is due to people lying about their education, then they shouldn't.

Good point.  If you're right that it's a response bias in the exit polls, then I think that also means that the exit polls from past elections have also gotten it wrong wrt what % of the electorate with a college degree was voting Democratic vs. what % were voting Republican....since they are weighting the toplines to match the election outcome.

I guess one thing to do if someone has a lot of free time on their hands is to go back to pre-election polls from 2012, and look at what they were estimating *before* the election both for the fraction of the electorate with a college degree, and the fraction of each educational group supporting Obama or Romney.  Do those #s line up more with the exit polls or the census #s?

Here's an example from the last YouGov poll before the 2012 election (sadly, they don't have education crosstabs this cycle).

Topline: Obama 49 - Romney 47.

College Graduates (34%): Obama 53 - Romney 43
Non-College Graduates (66%): Obama 48 - Romney 47

Compare this to the exit polls:

Topline (adjusted to match the result): Obama 51 - Romney 47

College Graduates (47%): Obama 50 - Romney 48
Non-College Graduates (53%): Obama 51 - Romney 47

Note that the shares are quite different, and that the polarization is essentially nonexistent in the exit polling (and is in fact slightly in the opposite direction).

YouGov is a lot closer to the census data; this is not a surprise, as they heavily, heavily used the 2010 CPS to weight their responses (at least when it comes to registered voters; likely voters is a different question).

I'm getting lost in this.

Are you saying the 538 decision was a good/bad or 'meh' decision?