Political pollsters are like weathermen — they can completely blow the forecast and never get fired.
That’s what nearly all of the pollsters did in 2016. The overwhelming consensus was that Hillary Clinton would crush Donald Trump in the election.
For instance, on Election Day 2016, at 10:41 a.m., wunderkind pollster Nate Silver posted a story on his website FiveThirtyEight. “Final Election Update: There’s A Wide Range Of Outcomes, And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton,” said his headline.
Silver said his “forecast has Clinton favored in states and congressional districts totaling 323 electoral votes, including all the states President Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa, but adding North Carolina.” He hedged his bet a bit, though, saying Clinton could lose North Carolina or Florida, so “the average number of electoral votes we forecast for Clinton is 302.”
In the end, Clinton got walloped in the Electoral College, 304-227.