How did pollsters get the 2020 presidential election so wrong?
Tennessean Opinion Editor David Plazas spoke to William Lyons, Knoxville political columnist and University of Tennessee professor, on June 2, 2020.
Nashville Tennessean
I used to conduct surveys. Issues with reliability and changing technology have made polling so much harder and less precise as we saw with the 2020 election.
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- William Lyons has worked as a political science professor at University of Tennessee and adviser to Knoxville mayors.
For the second straight presidential election year, it was a bad day for the pollsters.
In 2016, there had been a three-point divergence between the late election surveys. This year it was closer to 6% nationally and often higher in key states.
And the divergence was not random. The polls were off in the same direction.
I used to be a pollster, or more properly, a member of