elections

The U.S. presidential election just came to a close, but the postmortem is just beginning. Both candidates will wonder why they didn't perform better, and pollsters will wonder the same.

Candidate Gobermouch is leading in the polls over Candidate Fopdoodle, 48% to 43%, a difference of 5 percentage points. The poll's margin of error is 3%. Does Gobermouch have a lead over Fopdoodle that is outside the margin of error?

Pollsters have taken a beating the last few years. Getting Brexit and the 2016 U.S. presidential election wrong were spectacular failures that shook the public's faith in prediction models.

The statement, "Statistics isn't science," is about as banal as, "The sky is blue," or, "Puppies are cute." Anyone remotely familiar with the scientific method understands that, just like a ruler or a telescope, statistics is a tool.

Every four years, Americans become obsessed with The Polls. What do the polls say? Have the polls shifted? Which presidential candidate is up, and which is down?