The 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was very confusing because the polls presented to the public did not match the results. Polls are supposed to give Americans an equal opportunity to express their opinions in a way that the electoral process cannot provide. However, after these elections, many people felt like they had lost their voice. Almost every political poll showed Clinton as the winner, but of course, that wasn't the case when Trump was elected President of the United States. Many wonder how the pollsters could have been so wrong, but there is no definitive answer, only a few theories. People can greatly influence investigations because “they can change their minds, they can decide not to share their opinions, or they can outright lie (Chalabi, 2016). » The most talked about theory as to why the surveys were wrong isn't response bias, which is when an individual can't or won't respond to the survey. According to www.pewreseach.org, “certain groups – including less-educated voters who were a key demographic for Trump on Election Day – are consistently difficult for pollsters to reach (Mercer, Deane, McGreeney, 2016). » Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay People with low education and low income are less likely to respond to a political survey, either because they can choose not to do so if they are not. educated in politics, or if they don't have a phone to reach. If there had been a greater number of uneducated or less fortunate people planning to vote for Trump than for Clinton, then the polls would have been more favorable to Clinton. This is a very significant sampling error that potentially affected the outcome of the polls in the 2016 election. The second theory as to why the polls were wrong is the "shy Trumper hypothesis." This idea is that many people were coy in saying they were voting for Trump because, at the time of the election, it was not socially desirable to vote for him. Most people had a desire to please (a sampling error) the pollsters, so they may have told them they were going to vote for Clinton when in reality they were planning to vote for Trump. In this election, these people were known as the “silent majority,” in which many people remained silent about their intention to vote for Trump in order to please the rest of society. This hypothesis is very closely linked to a 1982 election in which "Democrat Tom Bradley, a black mayor of Los Angeles, lost the 1982 California gubernatorial election to Republican George Deukmejian, while he was in office. lead in the polls, supposedly because voters were reluctant to tell interviewers. that they were not going to vote for a black candidate (Mercer, Deane, McGeeney, 2016). " This theory of timid Trump supporters could certainly be a reason why polls say "Trump has a 15% chance of winning, which is roughly the 15% chance of winning." same chance of rolling a total of six if you have two dice (Chalabi, 2016)” and underestimating Trump’s level of support. The final theory is "probable voter error" or social desirability bias, in which Americans say they were going to vote but didn't actually plan to do so. Some people had.