For the past 90 years, election prognosticators have had one tool in their toolbox: surveys. After the third consecutive American presidential election in which this methodology underestimated support for Donald Trump, there are reasons to doubt it makes sense any more. Calling a small sample of people and asking them what they are going to do seems anachronistic in a world in which tech behemoths mine billions of online data points to predict consumer actions—behemoths that often know consumers better than they know themselves.

       Consider the problems with polls. First, people do not answer them. Survey response rates have dropped to as low as 2%.

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