Add another group to the list of losers in Turkey's general elections: polling companies.

Turkey has provided fertile ground for pollsters, with four elections in less than two years. There are a dozen reputable companies that conduct periodic polls in different parts of the country. Most of these companies published frequent surveys about the snap elections on Nov. 1. Although the majority of them predicted a few points' gain for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), none were able to predict the AKP’s 8.5% rise. The closest prediction came from Gur's A&G Research, which showed the AKP at 47.2%, but the actual results fell outside A&G’s own 1.5% margin of error. 

Most of these companies have been in business more than a decade, and most predicted the June election results correctly. How did they fail so badly this time? After talking to activists, scholars, pollsters and the directors of these agencies, Al-Monitor has come up with three main clues to this puzzle.

First, the AKP came out of the June elections with losses, but quietly recouped some of them. Although the pro-AKP media turned several negative results to the AKP’s advantage, that the AKP had lost votes in every province was undeniable. The Turkish public must have concealed its preferences in the polls leading up to the November vote. Al-Monitor spoke with eight pollsters from different agencies who worked in Istanbul and Ankara for both the June and November elections. All were concerned they would not be rehired if their names were published, so their names have been withheld.