The Times appeared to set low expectations for the election needle’s accuracy in a report earlier this year that cautioned there are too many factors and too much unpredictability for it to be totally reliable. The CJR report also says that the Times has partnered with Siena College to conduct live polls to allow “audiences to peer under the hood as a call bank of college students tries-and mostly fails-to reach poll respondents in real time.” The Times itself called the needle “an object of both obsession and derision during the 2016 presidential election” when it was re-introduced before the Alabama special Senate election in Dec.
Republican nominee Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but won the presidency comfortably in the Electoral College. 8, 2016 that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had an 85 percent chance of winning the presidency.
The online predictive forecast model was particularly the subject of scorn on the night of the 2016 presidential election.
The New York Times election needle, which has been the subject of criticism, is set to return for the November midterms, according to the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR).