![]() ![]() “It was a systematic error across the entire industry.” “Despite what some analysts are claiming, the polling error in 2016 was not normal, it was not predictable, it’s not something we should say that happens sometimes,” said Drew Linzer, director and chief scientist of the polling website Civiqs. As the new president reveled in pulling out a win that no one saw coming, pollsters went through a serious reckoning. When he says he’s never seen anything like this before, it’s likely because he was around 12 when the Tea Party wave hit in 2010.Ī year and a half ago, the polling community was grappling with how things went so wrong. “I guess I’m too far gone now.”īetween censuring campaign reporters for their hot takes based on single polls and predicting election results in late-night primaries, Morris tweets about his undergraduate finals and pulling all-nighters with tubs of ice cream. “I guess the trope is I fell in love with statistics and math,” he said in a recent interview. He starts his first real job, as a data analyst with the Economist, in July. Morris is a 21-year-old who just graduated from the University of Texas Austin. And unlike some of the more seasoned and cynical election watchers, Morris has a sort of fresh eagerness about him - an earnestness in his analysis that makes the Nate Cohns of the world roll their eyes a little. He’s been retweeted by Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, a major liberal think tank. To be clear, Morris says his model operates in a “paradigm of uncertainty.” His forecast model predicts Democrats have a 60 percent chance of winning the House majority back in November. His personal blog, the Crosstab, is chock-full of posts with nearly the same conclusion: All things point to a wave. When combined with *forecast* generic ballot polls (this has its own error), models predict a 10.5% Dem House margin in Nov. On average, Dem candidates have swung their seats by 15 percentage points. Special elections point to the largest Democratic wave election since 1994. Pinned to the top of his Twitter page is a graph of his 2018 projection model it’s a straight line shooting up toward a Democratic House takeover in November. ![]() With more than 22,000 followers, Morris has become a familiar name to seasoned pollsters, national campaign reporters, and #resist Twitter alike. Morris is a kind of extremely online election watcher tailor-made for a year when Democrats are looking for a blue wave. The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman warns these kinds of tweets could easily veer into “wish-casting,” combining objective forecasting with desired outcomes. Veteran election watchers are wary of this trend. The 2018 midterms are about the potential of a “blue wave” and Democrats sweeping back into power. Primaries aren’t dull affairs to anoint candidates - they are early tests of voter enthusiasm. Special elections are no longer just about filling open seats - they are referendums on Trumpism. It’s a hotbed of instant, and at times misguided, analysis prognosticating a historic election in November. Primary election night Twitter is about the hype. ![]()
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