What ‘blue wave’? Why pre-election polls faltered again.

A majority of opinion polls showed Democrat Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump by a wide margin in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. But President-elect Biden’s winning margins in battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan proved to be much narrower than the polls predicted.

Similarly, many Democrats in congressional races underperformed their polls. No “blue wave” materialized for Democrats to retake a majority in the U.S. Senate.   

Critics say the polling industry has failed to learn after its misses in the 2016 presidential election. 

How wrong were the polls in predicting the 2020 election results? 

In terms of the popular vote, not as much asSimilarly, FiveThirtyEight projected a margin of victory for Mr. Biden of 8.4 points. 

What is behind these misses in election polling? Has it become harder to survey public opinion on voting intentions?