When the polls close on the midterm elections this coming Tuesday night, the country will turn its temporary attention towards understanding what happened. The winning and losing candidates will likely be clear. However, the “how” a candidate won, or the “why” a candidate lost will not be. Analysts and pundits will pore over exit polls, election results from bellwether counties, and more. They’ll tell you what demographic groups turned out, who they voted for, and why. Most Americans, generally unaware of how polling and election analysis are actually done, will listen to the coverage and take it as ground truth. By week’s end, the election narrative will largely be set, and everyone will move on, fully confident they know the fundamentals of what did and did not happen.
But are things really that simple? CONT.
Yair Ghitza (Catalist), Medium