How pollsters gave Clinton a raw deal

It was a bruising tight race between Democratic nominee Secretary Hillary Clinton and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump but even hours before the election, most pollsters had put Clinton as a favourite to win the election.

What went wrong?

Most pollsters had predicted a White House victory for Clinton even giving her a five-point lead as voters hit the polls with only little known Trafalgar and LA Times/USC tracking consistently polled Trump ahead.

Time and again, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, herself a pollster, was dismissed for calling out pollsters who put down Trump.

She consistently told media and Washington that they were in for a big surprise.

But the key to Trump’s election victory has been attributed to the silent, conservative voters, those who could or would not openly come out to say they would indeed vote for Trump enabling a false sense of confidence in the Clinton campaign.

Trafalgar is said to have weighted its polls and captured what neighbours were unwilling to tell pollsters.

The past week’s campaign on both camps appears to have been a game changer and caught most by surprise, the consistent slight lead believed to have been enjoyed by Clinton even as the election opened took a complete about turn with Trump’s eventual triumph.