All night long, we heard the news networks talk about how "all" the polls and pundits were wrong. They were saying that Clinton is underperforming expectations, and voters were coming out for Trump in numbers no one had expected.
As voting started, these same pundits had been saying that Hillary was a lock. Even as late as 8 p.m. on election day, the New York Times gave her an 80% chance of winning. Pundits said there was no realistic path to an electoral victory for Trump.
But as the returns came in, these same shellshocked experts were saying that nobody predicted this, nobody thought it could happen, nobody expected voters to turn out the way they did. "What did everyone get wrong?" CNN pondered.
Excuse us, but not everyone got it wrong.
IBD/TIPP's final numbers put Trump up by 1.6 points in a four-way race. As of 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, Trump was up by about 1 point in the popular vote. (The actual vote outcome will likely change as votes continue to be counted over the next several weeks.)
Not one other national poll had Trump winning in four-way polls. In fact, they all had Clinton winning by 3 or more points. For the entire run of the IBD/TIPP poll, we showed the race as being far tighter than other polls. This isn't a fluke. This will be the fourth presidential election in a row in which IBD/TIPP got it right.
The Los Angeles Times, which had employed a panel of people who were queried about their choice (and which had been ridiculed throughout the election) showed Trump up in a two-way race by 3 points.
In the final poll, Raghavan Mayur, president of IBD's polling partner Technometrica Market Intelligence, said he saw more enthusiasm for Republicans and independents. He said Republican turnout would equal Democratic turnout, despite the Democratic party's registration advantage. That appears to be the case. He said independents were breaking for Trump. That also appears to be the case.
We will have more to say about this later. But for now, we are happy to say that, according to preliminary results, IBD/TIPP has now had the most accurate presidential poll four elections in a row.
Mayur might not a big self-promoter, but he is exceedingly good at his job. It's clear today that few of the many over-paid pundits, pollsters and other so-called experts can make that same claim.
Congratulations to Mayur and his team for their consistently outstanding work.
Please click here to read the original article on the Investor's Business Daily website.