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No, it does not. At least not necessarily so. If Joe Shmoe notices that Trump or some other candidate did better in an election than the polls indicated, the pollsters did too.
Pollsters are expected by the public to tell the future. Pollsters only can do that by looking into a review mirror. The pollsters themselves reject their prognosticator reputation and go to pains to remind us that polls are a snapshot in time. Regardless, polls are used to take the temperature of the electorate.
(Pew)All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting,” which makes sure that the survey sample aligns with the broader population on key characteristics. Historically, public opinion researchers have adjusted their data using a core set of demographic variables to correct imbalances between the survey sample and the population.
But there is a growing realization among survey researchers that weighting a poll on just a few variables like age, race and gender is insufficient for getting accurate results. Some groups of people – such as older adults and college graduates – are more likely to take surveys, which can lead to errors that are too sizable for a simple three- or four-variable adjustment to work well.
