Support for 2016 GOP Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump may actually be higher than polls indicate.
According to a new study, college educated Republicans are less likely to admit they support Trump when they talk to a live person. When polled another way, Trump goes up 10%.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
“Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field in polls of Republican voters nationally and in most early-voting states, but some polls may actually be understating his support, according to a new study.
The analysis, by Morning Consult, a polling and market research company, looked at an odd occurrence that has cropped up repeatedly this year: Trump generally does better in online polls than in surveys done by phone.
The most telling part of the experiment, however, was that not all types of people responded the same way. Among blue-collar Republicans, who have formed the core of Trump’s support, the polls were about the same regardless of method. But among college-educated Republicans, a bigger difference appeared, with Trump scoring 9 points better in the online poll.
Social-desirability bias — the well-known tendency of people to hesitate to confess certain unpopular views to a pollster — provides the most likely explanation for that education gap, Dropp and his colleagues believe.
Blue-collar voters don’t feel embarrassed about supporting Trump, who is very popular in their communities. But many college-educated Republicans hesitate to admit their attraction to the blustery New York billionaire, the experiment indicates.”
