Luntz, this week’s guest on The Interview podcast, gave pollsters something of a wake-up call when Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin asked what will happen to the industry if Trump wins the election despite the poor polling performance of his campaign.
“If polling gets it wrong again, then the industry, at least for politics, is done. You can get it wrong once. And it was the exit polling they got wrong — and none of the networks want to acknowledge it,” Luntz said. “I put out a tweet on election night of 2016 that said Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president. I was really blunt about it because exit polling had never been more than four percent off. And it was off in both 2000 and it was off in 2004. It was wrong.”
Luntz noted that polls did get the popular vote for Clinton correct, but polls were wrong when it came to the state by state numbers.
“But if they get it wrong a second time and Trump does win, I think it’s going to be very much the end of public polling in a political situation,” he said.
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