Exit Polls: Reading the Tea Leaves
Beginning 6.30 PM, the exit polls will swamp TV screens and social media. Follow along, if that is your thing — but keep this in mind when deciding how to read what you see on your screen. Read on...
Exit Polls: Reading the Tea Leaves
This has been doing the rounds of social media over the last couple of days:
It is a compilation of exit polls from the 2021 West Bengal elections. The actual outcome was TMC - 215, BJP - 77, Left+Cong - 0.
It is not an exception — among several other instances, last year’s Karnataka assembly election showed a similar gulf between what pollsters predicted (a hung assembly) and what the voter decided (a decisive mandate for the Congress).
The point sought to be made by those posting the table above is, what do pollsters know? That is reductive — it is as foolish to dismiss exit polls altogether as it is to believe them in toto.
Pollsters are generally good at reading trends, at capturing the general direction an election will take.
So how do pollsters get some elections right and some wrong? An involved explanation would need to parse sampling quality, demographics, and other factors. A quick explanation is that pollsters detect waves, but struggle with sub-surface groundswells.
PostScript
When I said there is no national issue, I was speaking of how pollsters view elections.
Unemployment is a national issue.
Crippling poverty is a national issue.
Economic stress and inflation are national issues.
Corruption is a national issue.
Inequality is a national issue.
Centre-state tensions are a national issue.
Social division is a national issue.
Institutional collapse is a national issue.
Internal conflict is a national issue.
Climate change is a national issue.
Geopolitical tensions are a national issue.
These are all national issues. And calling this an election without a national issue is the real tragedy.
This article first appeared on Prem Panicker's Substack. Here is the original link.
Dive deeper with The Probe. Join our WhatsApp channel: Click here
Support us: Truth Brigade
