Artificial Intelligence

An Election Lesson: How to Eliminate Emotional Factors From Predictive Analytics

Polling errors show why data models need to reach beyond human surveys

emotional-factors-predictive-analytics-PAGE-2020 — Data models cannot rely on human opinion alone.iStock

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In a tight race, it is very difficult to predict a winner with confidence. The trouble in this election cycle is that most pollsters didn’t even predict that the race would be this tight. Regardless of the actual outcome of the election, one might say that the biggest losers in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles are the pollsters and pundits.

How could they be so far off twice in a row by such large margins? Not just for the presidential election, but for congressional