While the results of Tuesday’s presidential election are still uncertain, one thing is certain: the media and pollsters got it wrong. Again.
The American people were told for months that a “blue wave” was coming to wipe out the Republican majority in the Senate, strengthen Democrat control of the House, and defeat President Trump in dominant fashion. In reality, the blue wave turned out to be a trickle, with Republicans almost certainly maintaining control of the Senate, and gaining as many as 12 seats in the House. The Presidential race, which experts predicted would be a blowout victory for Biden, is still undecided, with razor thin margins in battleground states across the country.
Once again, the “experts” were wrong, with polls consistently off, almost always in favor of Democrats.
For example, polls in Ohio, Iowa, and Florida — all states Trump won — were off by 7.1%, 6.2%, and 4.3% respectively. In Wisconsin, where polls showed Biden leading by 6.7% on average, the actual margin is just 0.6% with 95% reporting.
While most polls proved just as inaccurate as they were in 2016, one polling agency stood out among the pack: The Trafalgar Group.
Despite being lambasted by the media as “crazy” pro-Trump propaganda when their polls showed a much closer race than the “experts” anticipated, it’s now clear that they were more accurate than any other major polling agency when it came to predicting outcomes in key battleground states.
In Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio, The Trafalgar Group was closer than any other polling agency, including establishment favorites like Quinnipiac, Reuters, Monmouth, and Rasmussen.
In Florida, Trafalgar was the only polling agency to consistently predict a Trump victory, with their average poll having him up 2.5%, less than 1% away from the correct margin of victory, 3.4%. For context, Quinnipiac, Monmouth, and CNBC predicted Biden victories, with their average polls showing Biden up 5.5%, 5.4%, and 3.6% respectively.
In Ohio, a state Trump won by 8.2%, Trafalgar was once again the only polling agency to routinely show the President with a lead, with their average poll giving Trump a 4.5% advantage. On the contrary, none of Quinnipiac’s six polls predicted the correct outcome, with the average poll giving Biden a 3.3% lead. Similarly, just one of Rasmussen’s four polls showed a Trump lead, with the average falling to a 1.25% Biden advantage.
In Wisconsin, Trafalgar’s polls were once again the closest, as their average poll showed a 0.8% lead for Joe Biden. The final margin? 0.7%. 3 of the 4 polls conducted by The New York Times showed a Biden lead in the double digits, while Reuters didn’t have a single poll showing the race within 5%.
In Michigan, Trafalgar was once more the most accurate polling agency in a state most experts predicted would be a blowout. While incorrectly showing the President with a lead, Trafalgar’s polling averages were still just 3.5% off the final mark — a 2.7% Biden victory. Reuters polls showed Biden with a 7.8% lead, while the average CNBC poll pointed to a comfortable 6.5% Biden advantage.
So why was Trafalgar Polling once again more accurate than their more esteemed, establishment counterparts? Their head pollster, Robert Cahaly, said that it’s because they take into account people’s hesitancy to express their support of Donald Trump.
In a recent interview on Fox News, he told Sean Hannity, other pollsters “haven’t made accommodations for the fact that people just don’t want to give their information out – they are hesitant to say how they feel. And in this day and age, where people are shamed for their political opinions and canceled and all that nonsense, people just want to play their cards close to their chest.”