When Donald Trump shocked the world to become the president-elect on Tuesday night, the biggest loser wasn’t his opponent Hillary Clinton, it was the polling industry that tricked America into thinking we’d be celebrating the first female president right about now.
The polls, which Trump has been calling inaccurate and rigged for months, made it seem like Clinton was a lock to occupy the White House come January.
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight is supposed to specialize in data-based journalism, but the site reported on Tuesday morning that Clinton had a 71.4 percent chance of winning the election. The site was wrong about the outcome in major battleground states including Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and Trump obviously won the election in addition to the individual states that were supposed to vote Clinton. Silver wasn’t the only pollster to botch the 2016 election.
Trump won the presidency with 279 electoral votes, compared to Clinton’s 228. Here is how polls predicted the electoral count:
L.A. Times
Clinton 352, Trump 186
Moody’s Analytics
Clinton 332, Trump 206
Rothenberg & Gonzales
Clinton 323, Trump 197
Sabato
Clinton 322, Trump 216
Princeton
Clinton 228, Trump 164
FiveThirtyEight
Clinton 302, Trump 235
Fox News
Clinton 274, Trump 215
Associated Press
Clinton 274, Trump 190
New York Times
Clinton 85 percent chance of winning
Here’s how other polls predicted the likelihood of a Clinton victory heading into Tuesday’s election.
Hypermind: Clinton 74 percent chance of winning
PredictWise: Clinton 89 percent chance of winning
Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation: Clinton 90 percent chance of winning
ABC News Political Analyst Matthew Dowd: Clinton 95 percent chance of winning
Here’s how other polls called the popular vote on Monday, according to Real Clear Politics.
Bloomberg: Clinton +3
CBS News: Clinton +4
Fox News: Clinton +4
Reuters: Clinton +3
ABC/Washington Post: Clinton +4
Monmouth: Clinton +6
Economist/YouGov: Clinton +4
Rasmussem: Clinton +2
NBC News: Clinton +6
One poll consistently had an accurate snapshot of the electorate — the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times “Daybreak” poll — but it was mocked by most political pundits and cable news talking heads as an outlier. The poll had given Donald Trump a significant chance to win over the past four months.
Ashley Reyes contributed to this report.