But no matter who will be elected, just as the reporter saw in this article, the friends around them reached an unprecedented consensus on one thing without exception: the mainstream polls that had been swearing before the election have "turned over" this time! Four years ago, Tr

The US election has not yet unveiled the curtain of the last suspense.

is filled with the endless debates around you, "Who will definitely be elected?" and "Who will be more friendly to China?" may have made you feel a little bored. But no matter who will be elected, just as the reporter saw in this article, the friends around them reached an unprecedented consensus on one thing without exception: the mainstream polls that had been swearing before the election have "turned off" again this time!

Four years ago, Trump miraculously reversed Hillary under the "sight of the negative" of various American polls, which has caused many people to have a serious crisis of trust in traditional statistical methods. Four years later, mainstream polls have even more optimistic about Biden and .

According to a comprehensive poll three days before the election, Biden still leads Trump by about 8 percentage points at the national level and about 3 percentage points in swing state . According to the New York Times report, if the poll is accurate, Biden will surpass Bill Clinton in 1996 and become the president to win the most overwhelming victory in the general election in 35 years. Other media reports said that this year's general election polls have been adjusted in many aspects, enough to avoid repeating the mistakes four years ago.

Comprehensive polls before the election showed that Biden led Trump 8.4%. (Source: FiveThirtyEight website)

However, it is not necessary to say that this year's anxious and ups and downs in the election process has made polls from all parties a laughing stock. Even at the national level, polls deviate by more than 5% from the actual results in forecasts in some key states. For example, pre-election polls show that Biden has a good chance of winning Texas (in fact, Trump won 52% of the votes and Biden 46%), and Ohio will be a fair match (in fact, Trump won 53% of the votes and Biden 45%).

In addition to traditional polls, other prediction agencies make predictions based on the weighting of polls, mathematical modeling and other methods. For example, the Economist magazine predicts that Biden will be elected will reach 97%, and the famous data analysis website FiveThirtyEight predicts that Biden will reach a nearly 90% chance of winning. These institutions predict that Biden will easily win a big victory, which is quite different from our impression and actual results.

The Economist magazine's election predicts that Biden's probability of being elected will reach 97%, and Biden is expected to receive 356 electoral votes, compared with Trump's 182.

FiveThirtyEight website's election prediction, Biden has an 89% chance of being elected.

The polls in the US election are always inaccurate. What is wrong? To what extent can we still believe in various election predictions? Will the political ecology and social structure of the United States change after the election? A reporter from the Beijing News interviewed Bao Gangsheng, who coached at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. Bao Gangsheng has been engaged in political theory and comparative politics research for many years. From the end of July last year to mid-March this year, Bao Gangsheng happened to be a visiting scholar at Harvard University, and had a relatively close observation of American society and campaigns. On October 23, Bao Gangsheng believed in his speech at Fudan University that mainstream polls overestimate Biden's victory, which is largely due to the fact that many Trump supporters have hidden their political stances in the current public opinion environment in the United States.

editing and writing丨 Beijing News reporter Li Yongbo

Bao Gangsheng, taught at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University. He received a doctorate from Peking University in 2012 and is a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He mainly studies political theory and comparative politics. The academic work "Politics of Democracy's Collapse" was awarded the "Beijing News' 2014 Social Science Book".

01

Why are polls always not "reliable"?

"It is a very difficult task to predict the results of political elections through polls."

Beijing News: Mainstream polls have always been optimistic that Biden will win easily before the US election, which is quite different from our impression and actual results, and inevitably reminds us of the scene of Trump's defeat in the poll four years ago.Based on the situation of these two US elections, why did the polls fail again? What technical difficulties will be encountered using polls to predict political elections?

package just promoted: Two weeks before the US election (October 23), I gave a speech on the US election at Fudan University. At that time, I made a judgment that mainstream polls greatly overestimated Biden's advantages. Now it seems that this judgment is valid. Even though Biden eventually won the election, mainstream polls still lost. Even if Biden won the votes in all the swing states remaining and won a big victory, mainstream polls' predictions about the election process are still wrong.

Generally speaking, it is very difficult to predict the outcome of political elections through polls. Now many institutions are engaged in various polls, such as polls for a new product or polls with general political attitudes, but often there will be no result, which can immediately test the accuracy of the polls. So in many cases, we won’t be able to know whether a poll is correct or not soon. There is one biggest difference between polls in the US election or other political elections. We can quickly know the election results, so the accuracy of polls can be tested quickly.

At the technical level, there will be three problems in the polls for the US election. First of all, there is a problem with sampling technology. Usually, there are only 800 to 3,000 samples in polls, but it is necessary to accurately evaluate the political attitudes and political stances of about 130 to 150 million voters participating in the vote. How to make the selected samples more consistent with the overall? This is a big problem. For example, after the 2016 US election, some experts found that after analyzing mainstream polls, there were significantly fewer voters who did not have college degree in the "rust zone", which was a major mistake made by the polling agency that year.

Another difficulty encountered in this year's election poll is that a large number of Trump supporters will hide their political stance. Some voters who support Trump are unwilling to participate in media discussions and investigations by relevant agencies. In the United States, except for a few conservative media, most mainstream television and print media criticize Trump. Faced with such an external public opinion environment, voters who support Trump are more inclined to hide their political stances. How large is the proportion of these voters? It is difficult for polling agencies to fully grasp.

The second is the issue of turnout. The turnout here does not refer to the general turnout, but should consider whether the turnout is distributed evenly among different voter groups. In other words, even if the polls are sampled accurately, the turnout for Trump supporters and Biden supporters may be different. If Trump supporters are more willing to vote than Biden's supporters, this will be more conducive to Trump's election situation. If this election battle is very anxious, the changes in one or two voting points of different voters may affect the outcome of the entire election.

The third issue involves the vote counting rules under the American Electoral College system. In theory, polls will use weighted methods to take this factor into account in statistical techniques, but the actual operation is not as simple as imagined. There are 50 states in the United States, and many polls have only one or two thousand samples, and there are very few samples distributed to each state. Under the Electoral College system, the 1% vote may determine the ownership of all votes in this state. In this case, it is often difficult for us to find an appropriate weighting rule.

The Electoral College system also brings another technical problem. We know that , California, is the most populous state in the United States, and it is also the state with the most electoral votes, with 55 electoral votes. In the last election, Hillary won more than 4 million votes in California, and this time Biden won more than 3.8 million votes. If the final voter count is between 140 million and 150 million, we will find that these 3.8 million votes are equivalent to a 2.5% advantage at the national level. I call it the Democratic Party’s “redundant vote.”

These 3.8 million "redundant votes" cannot bring Biden more advantages, because according to the Electoral College system, he only needs to get one more vote in California than Trump, and he can get all 55 electoral votes in California. And this is very tricky for polling agencies and it is difficult to find the right weighting method.

In other words, it is difficult to win the election if the Democratic candidates' public votes do not lead the Republican candidates by about 2%. Because the votes in California alone have a 2.5% advantage, while the population size and gap in other states are not that big. So a basic judgment is that the Democrats need to lead by more than 2% in public voting in order to win the election with more confidence.

"Today, the Electoral College system has become a very special set of direct election system." (The picture shows the documentary "Voting and Election Decryption")

Beijing News: Over the years, even in the United States, the debate on whether the Electoral College system is reasonable has never stopped. In the last election, Hillary also had a "paradox" of winning more votes but losing the election. What are the pros and cons of the Electoral College system? Recently, media reported that nearly 70% of the respondents prefer direct elections to replace the electoral college system. How likely do you think the United States will modify or replace the electoral system in the near future?

package has just been promoted: first needs to correct a message. The "70% of voters oppose the electoral college system" you mentioned also belongs to the polls we mentioned before. We need to verify whether this data is accurate. I think this may represent more of the Democratic Party’s position. Of course, so far, the Electoral College system has indeed received considerable criticism in the United States. We generally believe that the so-called democratic voting rules are "one person, one vote, votes are equal", but the US Electoral College system is not like this, which has become a paradox in democratic voting.

1787, when the founding fathers of the United States designed the presidential election system, they had a concern that if the public were allowed to vote directly, populist leaders might be produced. The so-called populist leaders are to mobilize the public's emotions through various inflammatory political commitments, make them lose their judgment, and ultimately achieve the goal of controlling state power. The founding fathers of the United States designed an elite filter device to achieve balance, which was later the Electoral College system.

Strictly speaking, this system was an indirect electoral system at the beginning of its establishment, but to this day, the Electoral College system has become a direct electoral system with very special vote counting rules. In the early days, the American people voted for the Electoral College, which could independently decide which candidate to vote for, and the election method was different in each state. Later, the American political system evolved more and more democratic, and with the constitutional amendments, the Electoral College was determined as a vote counting rule. The electors of the Electoral College in each state can only determine their political position based on the state's public voting results, which is what is often said now that "the winner takes all."

But this vote counting rule has led to a politician having the possibility of winning a higher public voting ratio but ending up losing the election, which is often criticized by many people. Others defend this system from other perspectives. The United States is a federal state, and the meaning of the United States of America is both a unity of the people and a unity of the states. Therefore, in the presidential election, each state first decides its own position, and then adds the positions of all states to determine the ownership of the president. There are also logical reasons for this statement.

If you want to modify this system, there are two different ideas. One is to directly abolish or modify this system, which involves the constitutional rules of the United States. The US Constitution has a strong "conservative gene", and maintaining the status quo is far easier than changing the status quo. It is necessary to have a huge motivation to promote constitutional amendment. The second method is to retain the electoral college system at the national level, and states modify their own electoral systems, such as allocating their electoral votes according to a certain proportional representation system. But if you do this, many swing states will be weakened in national electoral politics, so these states are unwilling to take the initiative to modify them. So even though everyone is criticizing this system, I estimate that the Electoral College system will continue in the foreseeable future.

Tips

"Rules of the Game" of the US election

US election is not a voter who directly elects the president, but is voted by 50 major states and the 51 "Electoral College" of Washington, DC. The Electoral College has a total of 538 votes, and whoever can get more than half of them, that is, more than 270 will be elected as president. These 538 votes are votes in the hands of each state, called "elective votes". Among the 51 regions, except for , Maine, and Nebraska, which allocates electoral votes based on the proportional effect of voters' votes, in the other 48 states and the District of Columbia, whoever wins the most voters in the region can get all the electoral votes in the state. This is the so-called "winners are all" system.

Beijing News: You just talked about the dilemma encountered by general election polls at the technical level. At the same time, we also see that mainstream American media are one-sidedly optimistic about Biden. Will this public opinion buildup also have a boost to the deviation of polls? In previous lectures, you mentioned the tendency of the American media to be too left-wing. How will this affect the psychology and behavior of voters?

package has just increased: Based on my close observation in the United States, I found that the "liberalization" or left-wing tendency of the American media is undergoing a self-reinforcement process, which I call "the internal circulation of concepts." Mainstream media, professors from first-class universities and some members of society form a social network where everyone lives, and they only believe in what they believe, but are unaware of the "conservative" camp outside, or have a simple criticism. They live in their own circles, strengthening these ideas themselves, increasingly deviating from the overall distribution of American voters' political attitudes. I have a guess that many of the social groups that specific staff engaged in polling are social groups with "internal circulation of concepts". We know that people always have more opportunities to be with people similar to themselves, and this will eventually appear in polls, and the deviation in the results will be very large.

"The future is different from today, and the future is also different from our predictions for the future today." (The picture is still from "The Past of the United States")

Beijing News: In addition to traditional polls, we have also seen other forms of prediction methods and alternative indicators in this election, such as database modeling, stock index futures, odds for gambling websites, Yiwu index, etc. To what extent can we rely on these various election predictions?

package has just been promoted: I am not a poll expert, nor a data research expert, but as you said, there are about three types of election prediction.

The first type is our common polls, which directly ask the interviewees about their political stance through mail, phone, Internet or home visits. The second type relies more on computer simulation, and makes some data for prediction through computer simulation. The third type is indirect indicators, such as the direction of the stock market, the odds of gambling websites you mentioned just now, which is actually very indirect information. But there is also a saying that money is always smart, and capital will be more sensitive than ordinary people. They have a professional team to provide more information, so the judgments made by capital will have more advantages than ordinary people.

In my opinion, all of these practices are in the probabilistic sense. We can only judge from a certain probability that as for how high this probability is, there is great uncertainty, and behind this involves a problem of the philosophy of social sciences. Behind social science research such as sampling surveys, we always preset that humans are rational animals. However, we must also note that human reason has boundaries, or that human beings only have limited reason and cannot accurately understand the whole world of the future through hard work and learning.

In terms of general election polls, poll predictions are very short from the actual occurrence. Many polls are two weeks before the vote, and some are even conducting polls on the last day before the election. But from the perspective of the philosophy of social sciences, no matter how close you are to the future world, we can only capture some facts on a certain probability.

" Fatal Conceit ", written by Hayek [English], translated by Von Klee and Hu Jinhua, China Social Sciences Press, September 2000.

Because of this, as a scholar, I always warn myself to maintain a sense of awe of the unknown world. Hayek's last book during his lifetime was called "Fatal Conceit", and I think we need to prevent this fatal conceit. There are too many factors that affect a thing, and no research method can exhaust all the variables. Many factors are still changing within a week or two. How can you make accurate judgments? Unless options a and b are very different, but if they are very different, ordinary people can know what will happen at a glance, then the polls will lose their meaning at this time. I really like to quote a quote from American management scientist Peter Drucker , "The future is different from today, and the future is also different from our predictions for the future today."

We need to maintain a sense of awe of the unknown, but this does not mean that political science or social science is worthless. In fact, by analyzing factors such as election rules, social structure, politician characteristics, etc. to make predictions, we will find that social sciences and political science can demonstrate a powerful analytical power. On the other hand, social sciences also have high application value. For example, political analysis of elections can actually help candidates adjust their election strategies.

Beijing News: In this election, some "black swan" events may also affect the direction of polls and election results. You said before that before the end of 2019, Trump's re-election seemed like a high probability event, and this historically recorded epidemic has become an unpredictable black swan of this election. To what extent do you think the epidemic has affected the vote structure of the general election? In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement that broke out in the past few months is also another black swan. How much impact does it have on the election?

package has just been upgraded: I find it difficult to answer this question of now. It takes one or two weeks after the election, and the overall data can be released before making a relatively accurate judgment on this issue. But this is a very critical question. How does the epidemic affect the turnout of voters in both parties? As I said before, here is referring to the relative turnout. My rough judgment is that the turnout rate of Republican voters is still increasing compared to Democratic voters. We can also look at some alternative indicators. Trump held many campaigns in swing states in the United States. The population size is very large. People will believe that these voters will not take into account the factors of the epidemic and will be more likely to go to the polling station on the day of the election. Of course, more Democratic voters will choose to vote by mail and early voting.

The "Black Lives Matter" movement has a long history in the United States, but now there are some aspects of this movement that are less willing to accept from the American centrists and conservatives. First of all, some radical things appeared in the development of the movement, and some urban parades have violent phenomena, which many people in the United States cannot accept. In addition, a radical manifestation is the need to stop funding to police. This is contrary to the need for American society to maintain the most basic law and order.

So, this movement seems to be a huge momentum, as if it is an opposition to Trump or opposing conservative political program, but the movement also rebounded and had a counter-effect. Some middle-aged voters may be dissatisfied with the Democratic Party because of this. These Americans think that law and order are the most precious things in American society, which will affect the final result of the election.

Beijing News: We have seen that Trump has claimed that he may file a lawsuit with the US Supreme Court. If the final votes are too close, do you think the 2000 Bush matchup between Gore will be reproduced? Will this give him an advantage in possible election lawsuits now three of the nine justices in the U.S. Supreme Court nominated by Trump?

package: 's lawsuit regarding votes mainly involves process issues.The provisions of the US Constitution that stipulate the lifelong service of justices are to allow these justices to make judicial judgments without concerns. On the one hand, this is based on constitutional principles and professional knowledge, and on the other hand, it is based on their conscience. If Trump intervenes in election litigation, I think the justices will still handle these things from a professional ethics perspective and in accordance with legal and constitutional principles, so it may not necessarily give Trump more advantages. After the election of

02

, will the political ecology of the United States change?

"Western society is likely to transform in three directions: nationalism, conservatism and realism." (Picture shows the picture of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory")

Beijing News: In 2017, you gave a speech with the theme of "The Return of Western 'hard Politics' and the Revival of Realism", which provides a perspective on politics. You think there have always been two traditions in political science, political idealism and political realism. In the past 70 years, peaceful development has allowed Western countries to be immersed in the narrative of political idealism. The essence behind the rise of populism and strong-man politics in Europe and the United States in recent years is the shift of Western voters from idealism to realism. Three years later, do you think the development and changes in the United States still conform to the judgment you made?

package: I made a prediction in my speech at that time, believing that Western society is likely to transform in three directions: nationalism, conservatism and realism. Over the years, we can see these trends working behind the scenes, from Brexit, Trump’s coming to power and a series of practices he later implemented.

If put in a broader context, I think the West is probably experiencing a new major transformation, roughly starting from the end of the Cold War, experiencing the acceleration of globalization, and slowly evolving to the present. From the end of the Cold War to before 2008, the West was generally in a relatively stable period. With the outbreak of the financial crisis, European and American countries have encountered a series of problems one after another. Overall, they can be divided into three aspects: two domestic issues and one international issues.

The first domestic problem is that due to the industrial transfer driven by globalization, various problems arise within European and American societies, including the loss of manufacturing opportunities and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. In a macroscopic sense, Western capital factors and labor factors have a relative separation, which has put huge pressure on society. One of the political and social consequences, I call it the "revival of class politics."

The second domestic problem is a major change in population structure. The United States is an immigrant society, but the past immigration of the United States mainly came from the ethnic background and Christian cultural background in Western Europe. But in the new round of immigration wave, a considerable number of American immigrants come from Latin America, and a part comes from Asia. In addition, more than ten percent of the black people in the United States have gradually turned the society dominated by white people in the United States into a more pluralistic society. American conservatives may not necessarily accept this fact. In their opinion, the United States is not only a constitutional United States, but also a specific civilization. If pluralism in various fields continues to rise and spread, the original American civilization may collapse and decline. This view was discussed in the book "Who Are We" published by Huntington in 2004.

The third challenge comes from the changes in the world's power structure after the rise of external forces. There are both issues of conflict of civilizations and issues of institutional models and ideological competition here. When the Cold War just ended, the United States had extremely obvious leadership advantages, but today its relative advantages are declining, which makes Americans more sensitive to these issues.

Trump’s political platform after taking office is actually to respond to these three challenges with a realistic and conservative attitude. First, he wants to bring job opportunities back to the United States and bring back investment in manufacturing. Second, he wants to build a wall at the border to control immigration. Finally, he adopted a tough attitude towards the challenges of the outside world, and even used a bargaining and realistic way to deal with the relationship with his allies.

compares it with Hillary.Hillary also wrote some books after losing the election. I found that Hillary did not realize that after so many years of changes, some new reality has emerged on issues such as social structure and challenges in the United States, and she does not have a strong political program to respond to these new reality. Therefore, many conservative voters found that Trump's policies were what they needed more. Although many Americans did not like Trump's personal and political style, they finally chose to vote for him.

Beijing News: But in the United States, the media and public opinion's evaluation of Trump seems to be in a relatively large contrast with this.

package has just been promoted: On the surface, this is related to Trump's personal style and personality. A more decent American person believes that his approaches are inappropriate, such as not being very etiquette and likes to use nicknames to tease political opponents. But this is just a superficial phenomenon. What is the deeper thing behind it? I think this reflects the growing political division between the liberal-led media in the United States and a politician like Trump who is biased towards conservatism and realism, and the political forces behind him.

"Now, the word 'assimilation' is already a political error in the eyes of relatively radical American liberals. But if you have some research on American history, you will find that the United States emphasizes the assimilation of immigration in history." (The picture shows the stills of "Flying in the Mountains")

Beijing News: Political differences remind me of the "Strangers in Homeland" by sociologist Hochsild. After Trump was elected in 2016, the book became a popular reading material. In it, she tells the "deep stories" hidden deep in the hearts of white people at the bottom and liberals in the United States do not understand. Four years later, the political polarization in the United States seems to be increasing, and the original consensus is becoming increasingly fragile.

package has just increased: We now have enough survey data to prove that political differences in domestic society in the United States are rising. In December 2019, I participated in an event hosted by " Atlantic Monthly " at Harvard University. There was a report in that issue of the Atlantic Monthly , providing a very interesting data. They surveyed Republican and Democratic families and asked if they would like to have your children marry children from another party family, to what extent is it acceptable? The results show that only 6% of respondents can accept it calmly, while this data exceeded 30% twenty years ago. It can be seen how far the social differences in the United States have reached.

Another example is immigration issues. The United States is an immigrant society, and open immigration is a basic policy that has been implemented since the 1960s. Immigration represents the fresh blood of American society. American liberals certainly agree with these views. But what do conservatives think? Conservatives believe that immigration is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are several problems. Is the more immigration the better? Also, what kind of immigration do we need? After immigrants come to the United States, you should maintain your original characteristics and integrate them with American society.

Now, the word "assimilation" is already a political mistake in the eyes of relatively radical American liberals. But if you have some research on American history, you will find that the United States has emphasized the assimilation of immigration in history. The United States is "one nation under God", the same nation under God. No matter where you come from, you will become an American when you arrive. Today you will see that the votes in California are bilingual (English and Spanish). When you go to places with more Chinese, there should be Chinese on the ballots. In places with many Italians, it should also have Italian. From one perspective, this is respect for all populations of different ethnic groups.

But the conservatives in the United States do not think so completely. Does this mean that the United States cannot even maintain its dominant position in the end? According to forecasts, the Hispanic population in the United States will reach 29% in 2050. In the foreseeable future, Hispanics may be comparable to white people. Will the United States eventually become a country with dual official languages ​​of Spanish and English? Could this be the United States that the founding fathers originally envisioned? You will find these two attitudes difficult to reconcile.

Beijing News: Political polarization is constantly intensifying and irreconcilable. Do you think the United States is already facing the brink of democratic collapse as some scholars say? Is there a possible turning point in the trend of political polarization in the next few years?

"Politics of Democracy's Collapse", written by Bao Gangsheng, Commercial Press, June 2014.

Bao Gangsheng: I have written a book called "The Politics of Democracy's Collapse", one of the two main variables that affect the stability of democratic politics is political differences. From this perspective, political differences in American society have been rising over the past 30 to 40 years, which is not a good thing for the democratic politics of the United States for more than 200 years. But at present, this is still far from the so-called "democracy collapse".

Looking forward from the current time, American society faces two futures, one is the trend of being more "conservative" and the other is the trend of being more "liberal". (Note: Here we refer to conservatism and liberalism in the American context) In fact, this is the American liberalism and conservatism that provide two different social channels. Conservatism wants to return to the tradition of the United States, emphasizing the free market, personal choice, and the founding fathers' concept of the founding of the country, and more emphasis on law and order. Liberalism emphasizes more on diversity, cultural, religious and ethnic pluralism, and more on caring for and caring for vulnerable groups, and social policies need to be tilted towards them. These are two understandings about the future social landscape of the United States.

So centrist voters are very important. Which picture he is more willing to accept may become the future direction of the United States. There is also an important misunderstanding here. In the past, we often believed that immigration was biased towards the Democratic Party, which was correct to a certain extent. But it cannot be forgotten that many immigrants have already escaped their original identities after they have partially or completely Americanized. Gradually, they no longer simply put themselves on the stance of minorities on these issues. Facing the future of the United States, they will consider the current different social landscapes together, which is the psychology of many centrist voters, including new immigrants.

This article is exclusive original content. Author: Li Yongbo; Editor: Xixi; Proofreader: Wei Zhuo. Reproduction may not be made without the written authorization of the Beijing News. Reprinting is welcome to forward it to your Moments.

Source: Beijing News