How did the election polls go? Pollster says one thing is "very clear."

president-elect Donald Trump largely made a stunning political comeback outperform the polls expected him to do it for the third election in a row.

In the days leading up to election day poll after poll showed him in a neck-and-neck race with the vice president Kamala Harris. State officials predicted the results may take days. There were lawsuits from Trump-affiliated groups willing to question the results. In the end, the race was called for the most people country woke up on Wednesday. Trump won, and it wasn’t particularly close.

But the results of this election brought clarity to a growing theory about why polls have underestimated Trump’s performance, according to the Pew Research Center’s vice president of methods and innovation. Courtney Kennedy: Democrats participate more in surveys than Republicans.

“Instead of us saying ‘oh gee, we don’t know what’s going on,’ no, no, no, this is very clear,” Kennedy told USA TODAY in an interview. “This election answered the question of whether the underlying pattern of Democrats taking surveys more often than Republicans… is still with us or has disappeared. Answer: It is still with us, and may have gotten worse in some parts of the country.”

Opinion polls left people shocked in previous elections

Before TrumpFormer President Barack Obama has overcome his election prediction to defeat Mitt Romney in 2012.

In 2016, popular pollster FiveThirtyEight showed that Hillary Clinton led Trump 45.7% to 41.8% on Election Day. In 2020, President Biden led Trump past 8.4 percentage pointsa big lead in what ultimately became an exciting race.

Pew Research Center has previously reported that the number of pollsters has grown and polling methods have become more diverse since then the 2016 elections.

Kennedy said Pew has seen some success in its own polling with diversified methods. A large annual survey conducted in the spring identified some social trends that emerged on election night, including young men leaning Republican and the share of Republicans growing nationwide.

Which polls were right and wrong in this election?

Kennedy said the polls were better this election than in recent years, and understanding their limitations could help pollsters make more adjustments in future elections.

“There was progress, but it wasn’t perfect,” she said, explaining that some pollsters are considering making weighted adjustments to account for the lack of Republican participation. “It’s not a silver bullet, it doesn’t make polling perfect, but it helps reduce the magnitude of the non-response pattern we’re fighting.”

She also pointed out that Trump’s overperformance compared to polls on a cumulative, national scale may be large, but the final numbers may show that individual races were more accurate. She pointed to California, where votes are still being counted, and expects those numbers to be closer to the state’s expectations.

Opinion polls are used not only to show voters’ support for candidates, but also to see what voters care about most in these elections. Opinion polls have largely demonstrated this the economy was the biggest problem for them and they favored Trump in helping solve it. Kennedy said the polls also clearly showed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration and the direction the country was heading.

But marking a change from the Biden administration was something Harris struggled with during her short presidential campaign.

“This election illustrated that polls better reflect the issues that matter, and what motivates people, and the moods and feelings about the candidates… than predictions,” Kennedy said.

Contributions: Phillip M. Bailey, Joey Garrison

Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.