The Pantherette’s online poll last week asked panthers to choose who should be president: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. This poll was far from statistically significant, and cannot be generalized to all of America, Texas, or even Paschal. But to our surprise, the responses mirrored the actual election results pretty closely! 

The Pantherette’s poll showed Trump winning with 56 percent. As of now, he is winning the actual election with 51 percent of the vote. Our responses showed Harris getting 44 percent. Harris currently has 47.5 percent of the real vote. 

Our results were even closer within Texas: here, Trump won 56.3 percent of the vote, while Harris got 42.4 percent. 

The race was called at 5:30 AM Eastern time after Trump was declared the victor in Wisconsin, putting him above the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. Prior to the election, some polls from the New York Times and NBC News showed a tie or Harris taking a slight lead. But evidently these were wrong, as Trump is on track to win both the electoral college and the popular vote. 

It is very difficult to accurately represent the opinions of an entire nation based on a small sample. According to the Pew Research Center, random sampling is the most accurate method of getting polls. In order to maintain random selection, pollsters use a process called weighting. This involves sending more polls to people in groups that typically respond less, such as those without college degrees. This process tries to ensure that all groups are represented accurately, but is hard to get exactly right. Some polls use “opt-in” polling instead of random selection, which uses responses only from volunteers. These polls are often less accurate than those that use random sampling. 

The Pantherette’s poll wasn’t anywhere near statistically significant. But nevertheless it showed similar results as the country: America has chosen Donald Trump to be the next president.