Elections in the United States: why the …

After the results in the United States, there was the feeling of another failure, another blunder, the polls. What had been set up was that a blue wave was coming, Democrat, and that did not happen. Or at least some analysts consider that the four point difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was not this wave. Page 12 He passed the criticisms and questions on to some of the country’s best-known consultants.

Here are your answers.

Hugo Haime, director of Haime y Asociados, said that “it is true that few polls have shown an end so near. Some spoke of ten points, but others – Ramussen and IBD / TIPP – diagnosed between one and four points. It seems to me that it is not appropriate to say whether they were right or wrong in taking an average, although it is true that the average has tended more towards the blue wave. There is also the question of states. And there were mistakes, like in Florida. It is as if someone told you that your candidate will win the province of Buenos Aires by ten points and win it by one. Yes, the winner told you that, but what appeared to be a race was not. ”

“The big problem is that investigations have problems all over the world and more have them as the face-to-face system has given way to automation. Call a system and answer with the keypad. There were problems in our country in 2019. But it also happened in Mexico, Spain, France. Either way, the instrument has problems with electoral accuracy. Many people do not respond, many cannot be reached, many are hiding the vote. This is why it is necessary to be able to work with several methodologies. But, and this is the most important thing for me, they are a precious instrument to guide electoral and government campaigns. Publishing surveys as a means of political advertising or fundraising is a mistake that adds to the methodological problems that are generated in liquid companies, i.e. they change a lot“.

Eduardo Fidanza, director of Poliarquía, has a different view of the forecasts in the north of the country, but he shares his point of view on the polls. “I don’t think the polls have absolutely failed in the United States. If we look at the results at the national level, the polls didn’t turn out badly: they predicted with enough precision who would get the most votes. Looking at the states, the polls were unable to predict which vote Trump would get, but they tied the winner in most cases. If we examine the reasons why polls are wrong or cannot accurately predict results, I tend to think that we are facing problems of a sociological rather than a methodological nature. People refuse to respond or do not express their true intentions. Or they change their vote with great ease. It also happens that they have lost respect for surveys, which they see as a marketing tool. The involvement of polling companies in electoral campaigns has damaged the prestige of this method. However, if we do not ask polls to be an oracle and accept them as an instrument of estimation, then we will find in them a useful instrument. In this sense, the polls did not play a bad role in this election ”.

Roberto Bacman believes that “the North American electoral process took place amid the coronavirus. It influences the voter. It is true that the dynamics of change also exist and beyond the Covid, but here it has had a strong impact. In recent years, significant changes have been detected in the mood of the electorate. The campaigns are different; some even become very aggressive and cling to hatred. There are segments of the electorate who tend to hide their vote. Hide their truth supported by hatred, by simple ignorance or even by a certain lack of interest ”.

“In the United States, face-to-face investigations of national significance could not be conducted due to the virus. Telephone surveys (using pre-recorded messages and without an interviewer) have encountered many problems around the world. The old and noble face-to-face surveys, where the pollster is with the Respondent sees him, sees his home, they are decisive, this was verified in our country last year, at PASO: it helped us allowed to detect the vote for Peronism in the modest sectors, which did not appear by telephone.Every day it becomes more and more essential to continue to work in search of more and better methods of knowing and analyzing reality, including the web and the online universe.“.

Shila Vinker from Trespuntozero states that “there is a kind of transfer of criticism from the political world to the universes close to it. This process also somewhat amplifies the idea that polls fail. If the vote count fails, how can the polls not fail? Part of this is related to the post-truth. Criticism of the effectiveness of investigations, without a doubt, cannot be separated from this phenomenon of massive mistrust. – to a large extent pulled by the fissure – which seems to dominate the entire spectrum of politics and society; and from which neither the media, nor politicians, nor social networks, nor the justice system are spared ”.

Facundo Nejamkis, director of Opina Argentina, believes that “polls are no longer just working material for candidates and campaign strategists. They are seen and consumed by the general public. In these spaces, it is unknown and difficult to admit the limits of this instrument, and it is treated as if it were a poorly rendered public service. If we focus solely on the polls, we see that most polls indicated that Biden would win in the popular vote, albeit by a bigger difference in some cases, and that a favorable outcome for the Democratic Party would also occur in college. electoral. However, it is also fair to point out that there are some issues to consider that have made it difficult to measure public opinion. More complex and heterogeneous societies, a polarization that is no longer exclusively crossed by social class differences. The emergence of disruptive candidacies that emphasize the traditional party system, the Trump or Bolsonaro cases. Or the decline of traditional parties, in the case of Spain with the emergence of forces like Podemos or Vox. The lack of stability makes measurement difficult. Finally, we are faced with the technological factor. The high cost of face-to-face measurements and the decline of landlines are undoubtedly the big challenge. Measurements online, on social networks, on mobile phones, by apps, are just some of the possibilities on the horizon, but because of their novelty, they are not free from trial and error which can also be read as failures ”.