https://thehill.com/homenews/morning-report/524580-the-hills-morning-report

Public opinion: The polling industry is in serious trouble in the wake of the 2020 election outcomes, according to some critics. Other veteran political analysts argue that in a presidential election with more than 101 million early votes and overall record-setting participation, the survey models in some national and state surveys were destined to be wrong. The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports on an “embarrassing election night” for the polling world.

In 2016, pollsters, in some cases unfairly, were widely perceived as off the mark. On Wednesday, they were decried as having performed worse than four years ago. The Atlantic called it a “polling crisis,” while journalist Jon Ward, writing for Yahoo Finance, said the industry has some “soul searching” to do. The gap between the pre-Election Day national poll average estimating the former vice president’s lead and actual results may turn out to be vast. In other words, polls may have tumbled toward the correct result but with bad data (Fox News). Pollster John Zogby, whose firm had predicted a narrow presidential contest, told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday he agreed that overall, polling this year was worse than in 2016. He said poll models this cycle were “getting too many Democrats and not enough Republicans,” and he hailed online versus telephone polling techniques as superior.