BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) Flashback to November 9, 2016. Much of America woke up the day after the election wondering how pollsters got it wrong when so many of them predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the race for the White House.
Today, with less than two weeks to go in the presidential race, many voters are asking why they should trust polls in 2020.
"The models that the pollsters employ have changed," said Canisius College Political Science professor Kevin Hardwick, who is also a Democratic member of the Erie County Legislature. "They know they got caught napping on some of the state polls four years ago. They're very attuned to this."
Hardwick said one of the things that scares Democrats is that Republicans have done a decent job, especially in battleground states, of registering new voters. "The question is will they be able to turn them out to the polls? And the answer is probably, yes. But it's an inexact science," he said.
Republican strategist Carl Calabrese, of Masiello, Martucci, Calabrese and Associates, said he doesn't look at any one poll. He looks at the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Still one poll stands out among the rest.
"There's one polling operation that got it right four years ago. They predicted the so called "blue wall mid west states" that everyone said was a lock for Clinton. They predicted that everyone of them would go for Trump," said Calabrese.
That polling group is Trafalgar Group. "They do polling different than most of the other polling organizations. "They use much bigger samples and they don't use weighted polls."
Trafalgar polls are also shorter. If you have a 25 or 30 question poll, Calabrese said the only people willing to stay on the phone that long are those who are most committed to the right and the most committed on the left. "The average person does not have time for that," he said.
Trafalgar asks eight questions. They do multiple contacts with people by text, computer, and phone. Calabrese said they have been extremely accurate and right now they show almost every one of the key states as tied.