Richard Fernandez, PJ Media: Pollsters Blindsided Again: Australian Labor Party's Surprise Defeat Echoes Hillary, Brexit
Australia's Labor party was supposed to have won yesterday's election handily. Their surefire formula for victory of increased taxes, heightened spending on climate change and engagement with China would bring in the votes. Then the unexpected happened: Labor lost.
Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition government has returned to power in the 2019 federal election, despite polls consistently predicting victory for the opposition Labor Party. The most surprising result for Labor came from the state of Queensland. Now, many people are comparing the shock result to the 2016 US election and the UK's Brexit referendum, which both defied opinion polls.
Few if any of the pollsters predicted it. The resulting bafflement was expressed by one tweet: "How could polls, from every company, for months including exit polls taken on election day not just be wrong but spectacularly wrong?" It was a massive intelligence failure and one worthy of examination. All political parties presumably pay for accurate polling, even if it shows them losing, because possession of the true facts is the only way to adjust their strategy. But after three failed predictions in three major Anglosphere elections, it may be time to ask how the polls got it wrong.
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WNU Editor: In the case of Australia, 54 polls in a row said the Labor party was in the lead , even in the exit polls .... Australian Labor Won 54 Polls In A Row, Including Exit Poll, Lost Actual election (Guido Fawkes). I live in Canada, and I can say the same thing here. Last month there was a provincial election where the pollsters were saying a week before the election that there was a 7% spread between the ruling Socialist government and the United Conservative Party of Alberta. The conservatives won with a 23% spread. One reason that I believe explains why the polls are off is that people are no longer willing to freely give information to others anymore. We now live in a politically correct world, and one wrong tweet here, or a comment and or opinion voiced over there, all of this can bring severe consequences. What also does not help is the role that the media is playing .... disparaging and ridiculing one point of view while promoting another. As a result we have become conditioned to keep our own counsel, especially to strangers.
Speaking of polls, Zogby has President Trump at 51% .... It's not just Rasmussen! Trump tops 50 per cent in a second poll amid trade chaos as Zogby finds more than HALF of millennials approve of his job performance (Daily Mail).
Update: Here is another interesting poll result .... 57% Believe Trump Likely to Win in 2020… Up From 54% a Month Ago, 46% in February (Scott Rasmussen).
