Now one step away from Election Day, a significant climate of uncertainty reigns. In the seven key states, the majority of polls have long shown a situation of substantial parity between Donald Trump And Kamala Harris. It goes without saying that, if things were really like this, we should prepare ourselves for a probably exhausting wait. The risk is that all the competitions in the key states could in fact reach a photo finish, as partly already happened four years ago.
However, at the same time it is legitimate to ask ourselves a question: are we really sure that the polls are reliable? To express doubts in this regard, a few days ago, Nate Silver. “There are too many polls in swing states showing exactly the race with Harris at +1 or equal to or with Trump to +1. There should be more variation than that. Everyone is doing herding (all except Siena College),” the well-known pollster wrote on X.
With the deadline herding it refers to a tendency among polling institutes to produce surveys aligned with each other, to protect their reputation in the event of an error. The logic underlying this type of behavior is essentially this: if we all make mistakes, no one is wrong. In particular, the smaller institutions would “flock”, following the larger ones.
“No one wants the embarrassment of releasing a final pre-election poll that turns out to be a complete anomaly. Perhaps that’s why some of the major outliers are actually produced by ‘stronger polling firms’ that don’t care about their reputation for accuracy, like Siena College, which Silver identifies as honest with his data,” reported the New York Magazine. “This very recent phenomenon creates something of a philosophical question: If polls are misleading, is the bigger culprit the high-quality pollster publishing an anomalous poll or the lower-quality pollsters going in the same direction? It’s hard to say,” he continued New York Magazine.
Second NBC Newsif we were faced with a phenomenon of herding“the artificial similarity of the polls could create a false impression that may not be borne out on Election Day.” “There is also a significant possibility that one candidate or the other could do well in each swing state and win the presidency rather comfortably, at least compared to the balanced picture of the polls,” the outlet continued. The argument is always the same. Even in the event of a truly close race, it would have been reasonable to expect greater variation in polls taken in key states.
Let’s be clear: it is not certain at the moment that a phenomenon is occurring herding. It is also possible that, eventually, we will truly have neck-and-neck situations in all seven key states. However, it is also good to keep in mind the alternative scenario: that is, that some sensational surprise could take place, capable of disproving the polls.
