Combining the best of the old with the rise of the new, Newshub has implemented a new methodology that hopes to get opinion polling right. We talk to political editor Patrick Gower on the reasons behind this change, why polling matters, whether politics is becoming a two-horse race and whether we can still trust the polls (and the media) in light of last year’s shock political events.
It’s been a year of unexpected outcomes in the sporting world and now in the US as voters turned out for Donald Trump to elect him as president. But even with such a support for Trump, the polls didn’t see it coming. Perhaps they should have taken guidance from the animals who tapped, ate and sniffed Trump more than they did Clinton. A Siberian polar bear named Felix, an Indian fish named Chanakya, a Chinese monkey named Geda and a group of puppies all proved a better informant than the polls when predicting the win. So where did it go wrong for the polls? We talk to to a group of New Zealand researchers about the validity of polls and how the prediction method could be improved.