The Binghamton University Forum is an organization established to promote relationships between the University and surrounding community and business interests. The Forum is operated by the Binghamton University Foundation and is a membership organization, with members paying $625 for an annual individual membership.

BU President Harvey Stenger introduced speaker Diane Feldman, ‘79, founder of the prominent Washington, D.C. polling organization The Feldman Group, Inc. and provided context for the event. The Forum invited Feldman to speak several months ago about the election, before it was known how divisive and contentious the 2016 contest would be.

During his opening remarks, Stenger addressed the concerns he has heard from members of the BU community who are concerned about the results of the election.

“It is interesting, when I meet with our new graduate students, many of them are from foreign countries,” Stenger said. “And they don’t look like me, they look different. But they’re ours, they’re our Bearcats. They’re kind of our children right now. They are going to be the people who help find the technology, find the economy of the future.”

He said that he thinks the University community will rally around international students, especially those who feel they face an uncertain future in the United States.

“And I know that some of them might feel a little scared right now, but I know that our community is going to embrace them wholeheartedly and warmly over their stay while they are graduate students, so they can continue to stay involved in the community,” Stenger said.

Feldman took the stage to present an overview to the local boosters about the demographic results of the election and why pollsters got the results wrong.

A point of emphasis for Feldman was the magnitude of the urban-rural divide in the electorate. Republicans won in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, neither of which the party had carried since 1984. Much of this had to do with who turned out to vote, according to Feldman.

“We used the 2012 election as a model for what the electorate might look like in 2016, but turnout in urban areas was down compared to 2012,” Feldman said.

Also of note was the importance of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory among white women. While women as a whole supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, white women — particularly older white women — generally supported Trump.

The Feldman Group, along with the majority of national election pollsters, did not predict a Trump victory. Like well-regarded national pollsters at The New York Times and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, Feldman predicted a safe Clinton victory in the presidential race. While Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes, she lost the Electoral College, and therefore the election, to Trump.

She attributes the failure of pollsters to several factors. Among the most important of these are inaccurate prediction models and an odd relationship between Trump and Clinton’s approval ratings.

At various points in the election, Trump made controversial statements, and other revelations occurred that damaged his polling numbers, according to Feldman. But when Trump’s numbers dipped, Clinton’s almost always failed to rise in exchange.

This, based on Feldman’s analysis, should have predicted a fundamental weakness in Clinton’s candidacy. However, most pollsters did not pick up on this trend. States like Wisconsin, which is currently undergoing a recount, had almost no pre-election polling that predicted a Trump victory, even though he likely carried the state.

“I don’t know of a single poll in Wisconsin that showed Trump ahead,” Feldman said.

Speaking about general problems with the polling system, she said that polling needs to adapt to a change in attitudes among the electorate toward surveys.

“Nobody considers it an honor to be polled anymore,” Feldman said.

She also said the market for polls is too saturated for any one poll to really get a representative sample.

“The part that pollsters don’t want to deal with or talk about is that clusters are getting too big,” Feldman said. “These people are just over polled — we are polling way too much.”

Offering a closing perspective on the next four years, Feldman said we are likely to see a lot more of the same.

“Those tired of political strife may not enjoy the next four years,” Feldman said.