Conversation

Surely not impossible, but what are the odds? Maybe 1 in 20, which would be on the order of 80 years. "Dewey" was 68 years ago.

Quote Tweet

Ariel Edwards-Levy

@aedwardslevy

Oct 21, 2016

For Donald Trump to win, there'd need to be a bigger polling miss than "Dewey Defeats Truman" huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-lo via @nataliemjb

9:50 PM · Oct 21, 2016

also, polling has improved since then and there are more of them allowing averaging

A core tenet of science is that virtually nothing is impossible. Just varying degrees of unlikely.

wait, are you implying continuous prob? Each election independent trial, same odds, no?

Both quantity & quality of polls have improved greatly since then.

Wasn't a lot of polling executed by mail-in back then?

luba petrusha

@drluba

Oct 21, 2016

In 1948 they stopped polling a few weeks before the election IIRC, and didn't catch the mood of the country shifting.

Walt

(We/Us) Just Enough to be Dangerous

@WaltFrench

Oct 21, 2016

The Dewey story is a fun one, in part b/c of a Linotype operator strike at Trib…wishful thinking+lead times

in the MI primary, HC led polls by 20, lost to Bernie.

and yet, this would be the time, the transition from analogue to digital polling