LIMA — A regional director for the Associated Press defended the news collaborative’s polling and coverage of the presidential campaign during a speech Monday.
“The polling we did was pretty accurate,” said Eva Parziale, regional director-east at The Associated Press, during a meeting of the Lima Rotary Club.
Parziale, a 1982 graduate of Bowling Green State University who earned her master’s degree at Columbia University, noted polling prior to the election did show Hillary Clinton winning the election, but the final results fell within the margin of error. She also noted Clinton won the popular vote without winning the electoral vote, and the popular vote was technically what the polling covered.
Parziale, a former Chief of Bureau in Ohio, Michigan and Oregon, described the cautious process the Associated Press followed before “calling” a state in one candidate’s favor or the other. She has been a race caller since 1992, she said.
“We thought Ohio might become Ground Zero again this year, but that was not the case,” she said, noting the majority of Ohio voters have selected the winnning candidate in each presidential election since 1964.
The Associated Press called Ohio in favor of President-elect Donald Trump at 10:30 p.m. Nov. 8, when about 50 percent of the votes were counted.
She explained the decisions are based off early exit polling, which showed Clinton leading Ohio by 1 percentage point, but that same-day polls showed a strong push from Trump, with an 8-percentage point lead. The Associated Press had 54 voting precincts offering 4,000 exit polling surveys to try to understand how the state voted.
There are always concerns about the results of polling, she conceded.
“What it really comes down to if this: Were people honest when we asked them who they voted for,” Parziale said.
She took pride in the Associated Press being the first news organization to call the electoral college map in Trump’s favor, at 2:29 a.m.
She called Trump’s win the “political upset of a lifetime.” The AP adjusted its post-election coverage to follow up on Trump’s promises and how he fills his administrative positions.
“The Trump presidency will promises to be a presidency like no other, and we’re already seeing that,” Parziale said.
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