MGSU Political Science professor: polls guessed wrong, electorate surprised

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – “Everybody expected that Hillary would take it,” said Joshua Abshire.

The surprise settled in late into a lot of voters the election night.

“It just seemed like voting for the lesser of two evils,” said Abshire.

Nearly all of the of the polls had picked Hillary Clinton to win–but Donald Trump took the votes needed to become president.

Abshire wasn’t too surprised, however.

“Just a mix from one friend to the other everybody’s on one side or the other,” said Abshire. “To me it just goes to show that we’re divided between things that just don’t really matter.”

Dr. Chris Lawrence is a political science professor at Middle Georgia State University.

“When the predictions turn out wrong, then people are very surprised,” said Lawrence.

He says the polls gave Hillary supporters a lot of hope.

“Most people were predicting Hillary to pull it out,” said Lawrence.

The role of social media in this election changed the way people thought as well–the emotion after the election Tuesday night was high.

“It’s just people being able to argue more readily than actually changing anyone’s mind about anything,” said Abshire.

“Kind of reinforces a lot times what people are feeling. I think that’s what we’re seeing over the last 12 to 24 hours, I think people collectively are dealing with the outcome of the election,” said Lawrence.

Lawrence believes that outcome changes the future for both parties looking into 2020.

“Where is that next group of democratic politicians that can appeal to people in the swing states?” said Lawrence.

Maybe someone we all know would be on the ballot for the democrats–Michelle Obama.

“A lot of people were really impressed with her speech at the DNC and that’s part of how Bill Clinton became president was he made this great speech and four years later he’s the nominee,” said Lawrence.