Top Democrat pollsters to release review of 2020 projections that acknowledges 'major errors'
Memo poses at least three possible causes for the inaccurate polling including late movement toward Trump, other GOP candidates.
Five of the Democratic Party’s biggest pollsters will release a memo Tuesday on the results of a months-long audit on their 2020 polling that will include what they’re calling "major errors" when comparing projections to final numbers.
The effort is an attempt in large part to understand why Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden narrowly defeated President Trump despite most polls showing him well ahead and House Democrats losing a net 12 seats amid projections of big gains, according to Politico.
The five Democratic firms that signed onto the memo are ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group and Normington Petts. They are five of the top six polling firms working for the Democratic Party apparatus, along with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, according to financial disclosure reports. ALG Research was Biden's lead pollster in last year's election.
The memo floats at least three possible causes for the inaccurate polling: late movement toward Trump and Republican candidates that polls failed to catch, the pandemic causing people who stayed home to answer the phone at a greater rate than those who did not follow restrictions, Politico also reports.