[Cinnamontea]

I turned on MSNBC last night (briefly, and literally for laughs). The talking heads were discussing why the exit polls in Wisconsin had the race at 50-50 when Walker won big. The obvious answer was the exit polls were wrong. They grudgingly came to that realization. But then they turned around and said Wisconsin was still good news for Obama because the polls had him 11 points ahead. Which polls? Those same exit polls! Sheer insanity.

[Strategerist]

The average of the polls prior to the election was PRECISELY correct, and the ACTUAL CNN consortium exit poll results were only off by a little bit.

Again you have to distinguish between the REPORTING ON THE POLLS and the ACTUAL POLLS themselves.

Scientific polls, be they prior to the election or exit polls, are uncannily accurate now. It’s virtually unheard of for the “polls to be wrong” except in very rare circumstances (a primary with 3+ candidates where voters are changing their opinion day to day, etc.)

Which is why elections have become so easily predictable.