Australia’s great 2019 election polling catastrophe wasn’t that big a deal, according to one of the most esteemed and experienced public opinion survey junkies in the world. Nate Silver, the one-time New York Times number cruncher who now runs the election focused website and news outlet FiveThirtyEight, dismissed the whole thing with a word. Herding.
Discussing some recent US Democratic Party primary polling last week on his podcast, Silver said pollsters had a duty to publish what they found in their surveys.
What went wrong in the lead-up the May election?
“If you’re dealing with dozens or hundreds of polls in an election campaign, you’re going to have some weird polls,” said Silver.
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