Larry Sabato, editor-in-chief of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said Wednesday on Fox News that he would like to see an investigation into what exactly happened with poling in the Virginia race for U.S. Senate between Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie.
The race between Warner and Gillespie was not expected to be competitive but turned out to be surprisingly tight.
“I want an investigation of the polls in Virginia. They were completely wrong just as they were in Georgia,” Sabato said on Fox & Friends. “They were also way off in Illinois. And I could go on and on. Boy is that an industry that needs some house cleaning. And Virginia’s a good example, I don’t know whether it was a combination by the Warner people. I think certainly a smart campaign by Ed Gillespie who came very close to being a U.S. Senator and now has set himself up to run for governor perhaps in 2017, or another major office. So all elections have consequences beyond the actual day. That’s a good example.”
Late Tuesday night Warner declared victory in the race but Gillespie had not conceded. As of Wednesday morning Warner held a narrow lead over Gillespie —12,000 votes of the 2.1 million ballots that had been cast, according to The Associated Press.
Is the problem crappy polls, or fools who take every poll seriously?
Perhaps the investigation should be of the polls where people voted.
I think the problem is that a lot of organizations see political polls as a means to get publicity for themselves and/or build a public narrative that somehow works to their advantage, so they get into the business for the wrong reasons. Polls are supposed to be objective research tools.
The question is which polls were off. The ones conducted by the media, campaigns and think tanks… or the one we had yesterday?
Ok, I’m done with this election. On to other stuff. Have fun with continuing this conversation about last night. But I’m moving on.