Public polls underestimated Trump’s potential in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. However the national polls, which has to do with the popular vote, were in the aggregate pretty good.
View attachment 1355519
The reason why people constantly remember the polls looking so bad for Trump were because the state level polls for the states I mentioned were not great for him thus limiting his electoral map victories. And you had some really fucking retarded election models predicting a Clinton victory at 90% likely. When 538 had her at a 75 percent chance or so.
2016 was in some ways a failure of public polling but a victory for Private Polling as some of that polling was what made Trump campaign in PA, WI, and MI.