Final 4-way polls

[KSRBEvans]

I thought it would be interesting to look at the final 4-way polls and come back after to see how they compare to the final number:

Bloomberg: HRC +3 (Clinton 44, Trump 43, Johnson 4, Stein 2)
IBD/TIPP: DJT +2 (Clinton 41, Trump 43, Johnson 6, Stein 2)
CBS: HRC +4 (Clinton 45, Trump 41, Johnson 5, Stein 2)
FOX: HRC +4 (Clinton 48, Trump 44, Johnson 3, Stein 2)
ABC/Wash Post: HRC +4 (Clinton 47, Trump 43, Johnson 4, Stein 1)
Monmouth: HRC +6 (Clinton 50, Trump 44, Johnson 4, Stein 1)
Economist/YouGov: HRC +4 (Clinton 45, Trump 41, Johnson 5, Stein 2)
Rasmussen: HRC +2 (Clinton 45, Trump 43, Johnson 4, Stein 2)
NBC News/SM: HRC +6 (Clinton 47, Trump 41, Johnson 6, Stein 3)
RCP 4-way average (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_st ein-5952.html): HRC +3.2 (Clinton 45.4, Trump 42.2, Johnson 4.8, Stein 1.8)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/elections/

[KeithKSR]

I hope the IBD/TIPP continues its trend as being the most reliable poll for this presidential election, like it has been in recent President election cycles.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-polls-fared-best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/?_r=0

[KSRBEvans]

At this point HRC has a 200,000 vote lead out of over 119,000,000 cast. My guess is when all votes are counted she'll end up narrowly winning the popular vote. Looking at those last polls above, none of them will be especially close, although Rasmussen had the narrowest HRC margin at +2, and IBD/TIPP the only Trump win at DJT +2.

[KSRBEvans]

Still counting votes--HRC currently (http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president) has a 1.7 point lead, which would make Rasmussen (HRC +2) the closest.

Not that it matters--I just find it interesting. The California numbers are really going to skew this, and there were lots of reasons for Republicans to stay home in California on Election Day. Not only was it a foregone conclusion that HRC would win the state, but the state's primary rules meant voters were choosing between 2 Democrats in their Senate election, so there was less reason to come out for a down-ballot vote.

[CitizenBBN]

Still counting votes--HRC currently (http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president) has a 1.7 point lead, which would make Rasmussen (HRC +2) the closest.

Not that it matters--I just find it interesting. The California numbers are really going to skew this, and there were lots of reasons for Republicans to stay home in California on Election Day. Not only was it a foregone conclusion that HRC would win the state, but the state's primary rules meant voters were choosing between 2 Democrats in their Senate election, so there was less reason to come out for a down-ballot vote.

What the media and most others gloss over is the point you touch on, that if the election were based on total vote count without regards to states, then people on both sides would have behaved differently. Hillary voters may have come out stronger in states like Kentucky, nad Trump voters in California etc. would have also maybe come out.

Of course the candidates themselves would have run very different campaigns too if the rules were different.

That's why I just dont' care about the overall polls at a national level, at least not when we get down to 2-3-4 point discussions, b/c they are measuring something that in the end is at best only somewhat correlated with the actual system we use for elections. Obviously if overall a candidate is 10 points ahead they likely won't see enough states go their way to win, but in a 2 point or 3 point race we've seen it be very possible. So it can tell us a race is maybe a foregone conclusion with a big margin but within even 4 points all that tells us is that it's close.

Now I'm keenly interested in numbers in battleground states, but in this election we saw that people just flat lied to the pollsters too.