Shy Trump Voter Depressing His Poll Numbers? Research Finds Little Evidence

[brooklynite]

SSRS

A thorough review by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) concluded that late-deciding voters for Trump, not shy voters, were a major factor in Trump’s victory and the failure of some pre-election state polls to capture the late movement. These Trump late-deciders, particularly in key battleground states, greatly outnumbered the late-deciding Clinton backers. The AAPOR analysis also pinpointed poorly conducted polling in some battleground states, which undercounted lower educated males.

In fact, in what appeared to many to be a polling debacle, the 2016 national polls were pretty much on target with Clinton’s almost 3 million edge (2.1 percent) in the popular vote. The average Clinton support in the national polls was 3.2 percentage points, well within the error margin.

Why were there so many late-deciding voters in 2016, particularly in four critical battleground states? The AAPOR report notes that many voters disliked both candidates, so many voters apparently waited until the end to decide. Then, there were the late breaking issues near election day as pre-election polling was underway – Wikileaks’ release of hacked Hillary emails, Russian intervention on social media, and the FBI’s unprecedented letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the investigation into Hillary’s email server.

The AAPOR researchers further compared results from pre-election live-interviewer phone polls to self-administered (IVR, web) interview modes. They hypothesized that estimates of Trump supporters would be lower and non-disclosures higher in the live interviewer mode compared to self-administered modes if the “shy voter” effect was confirmed. They compiled a data set of 208 battleground and 39 national polls conducted by both live interviewers and self-administered during the final 13 days of the campaign. They concluded that “the results are inconsistent with expectations of the Shy Trump theory.”

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Unsurprising

Really, how many "shy" supporters are there if approval still hovers at 40%.
They're not shy upon giving their approval.
Why would they be shy in one poll, and not shy in another.
This is a good job of confirming the notion of the "shy" supporter was silly.

[Midnight Writer]

2. More pretzel logic from the Right. Lots of it today.

[Awsi Dooger]

3. I believe his support is still understated

Trump remains the dream president for tens of millions of people. There's no sense attempting to understand it but it's silly to deny it.

Other than political forums I post primarily on sports sites and true crimes sites. The sports sites are easy to decipher. Those are white wingnut males who despise Democrats and idolize Trump.

But the true crime sites surprise the heck out of me because they come across as intelligent perfectly reasonable people. Only recently did many of them begin posting political videos on YouTube to go along with the true crime videos. To my astonishment, without exception they are all hard line Trump supporters. And these are primarily females.

Also I don't know one friend in sports betting circles who switched from Obama to Trump and now to Biden. They are even louder in support of Trump this time.

I would take any victory right now. Running up the score is not a concern at all.