Conventional Wisdom May Be Contaminating Polls

Nate Silver: “When the conventional wisdom tries to outguess the polls, it almost always guesses in the wrong direction. Many experts expected Le Pen to beat her polls. Currency markets implied that she had a much greater chance — perhaps 20 percent — than you’d reasonably infer from the polls. But it was Macron who considerably outperformed his numbers instead.”

“While this was somewhat amusing — the one time the experts decided to take the nationalist candidate’s chances really seriously was the time she lost by 32 points — it should actually worry you, even if you’re a ‘fan’ of polling and data-driven election forecasting. It’s a sign that the polls may be catering to the conventional wisdom, and becoming worse as a result.”