Whilst this is objectively true - this result is basically within the margin of error of most polls. I highly doubt this argument is going to be accepted by most people. It'll be exactly like Nate Silver screaming into the void for the last 8 years pointing out he gave Trump a ~30% chance of winning and that happens... 30% of the time!

This isn’t an interesting statement. I could pull any numbers out of a hat in (0, 1) as probabilities and regardless of the outcome could use the same excuse because there is only a single event to observe.

No, they didn't.

For one, they said Clinton had a 70% chance of winning.

But perhaps more importantly, people's poor understanding of stats meant that many people interpreted that as "She's going to get 70% of the vote" (i.e., a landslide, "and so I don't need to vote").

> they said Clinton had a 70% chance of winning.

No, they didn't.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential...

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/clinton-has-90-percent...