Bandwagon effect?

In 2016, pollsters in the United States projected the wrong winner in the presidential race.

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

Although the surveys reflected Hillary Clinton's victory in the popular vote (by a margin of nearly 2.9 million), they failed to project the outcome in the decisive electoral college, which Donald Trump won.

Last year, the credibility of US polling took a worse hit. Pre-election survey results consistently showed a presidential race so tight there were concerns over a cliffhanger in the November vote. Surveys also showed Kamala Harris nudging up the numbers for the Democrats against the Republicans' Trump after Joe Biden gave way to his vice president.

Yet when the results of both the popular vote and the electoral college came in, the world saw not just a sea of red, as the Republicans had predicted, but a red tsunami that swept the United States, handing Trump control over the White House and Congress, with several of his appointees from his first term sitting in the Supreme Court.

Opinion polling also took a hit in 2016 in the United Kingdom, when the surveys failed to reflect British citizens' preference to exit the European Union. Because surveys usually serve as guides in UK policy making, the Brits found it necessary to conduct a post-mortem, to find out what went wrong in the polling.

In the Philippines, the top pollsters have been releasing similar results on performance, approval and trust ratings of key officials, as well as the main public concerns (high prices and jobs consistently top the list).

The reputable surveys have also been accurate so far in the races for president, vice president and the top six places in the Senate.

But now the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has revived a concern about pre-election surveys. Are they reflecting voter preferences, or influencing them?