Polls get elections wrong. So use Google, says Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
The data scientist argues that stronger predictions lie in what people search for
FOR THE past 90 years, election prognosticators have had one tool in their toolbox: surveys. After the third consecutive American presidential election in which this methodology underestimated support for Donald Trump, there are reasons to doubt it makes sense any more. Calling a small sample of people and asking them what they are going to do seems anachronistic in a world in which tech behemoths mine billions of online data points to predict consumer actions—behemoths that often know consumers better than they know themselves.
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