Overeducated Voters Skew Polls

A distinct group—highly educated people who have experienced downward social or economic mobility—responds to polls at atypical rates and with atypical preferences, biasing samples and standard weighting models. That composition effect can flip perceived public opinion and mislead campaign strategies, media narratives, and institutional planning. — If true, pollsters, newsrooms, and campaigns must rethink sampling and weighting because a persistent, identifiable respondent class can systematically distort democratic information signals.