The KIRO rundown: UW professor offers theory as to why polls were so wrong

While we wait for votes to continue being tallied in the presidential election, here are the latest reactions from the KIRO Radio hosts to everything that’s been going on.

Mike Lewis of KIRO Nights talked to University of Washington Professor Mark Alan Smith who offered a theory as to how the polls were as wrong as they were.

“With voter registration this is typically a face-to-face enterprise,” Smith said.

Because Republicans were more willing to interact with people during a pandemic than Democrats, it’s possible they were able to register more voters.

“It’s tricky for the polls to pick that up because the thing about an election is you’re trying to project who the voters are going to be when in fact you don’t know who the voters are going to be,” Alan said. “With election data it varies from one election to the next. So, you never really know how many Republicans are going to show up to vote, how many Democrats are going to show up to vote.”

Smith was emphatic this is an unverified hypothesis and he’s still waiting for data to back it up, but it could explain why polls for a state like Florida ended up being five points or so off.

Dave Ross of Seattle’s Morning News had Rob McKenna explain what’s going on with Trump’s attempt to challenge results in Pennsylvania.

Dori Monson warned he believes the election is being stolen.

Gee and Ursula had a University of Washington Law Professor tell us when the absolute latest we could see a final winner in all this.

Don’t forget about Loren Culp! All the shows weighed in on his lack of concession and his recently announced job loss.

The KIRO Radio Rundown Podcast collects takes from each KIRO Radio host on the biggest stories of the week and puts them in one place. Released Tuesdays and Thursdays by 7 p.m.

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