As readers of this blog know, I am not wild about public polls – they tend to focus people on the “horse race” at the expense of other areas of the campaign and way too often their read of the horse race or of changes in it are misleading. Nonetheless, they seem to proliferate so here is a short primer of what to look for to evaluate how real they are – or are not:
1. Do the demographics of the poll match those of the electorate? The distribution in the poll by age, gender, partisanship, race, education and geography should match that of the electorate. Now, these factors vary in the electorate depending on voter registration and turnout so the exact distribution for a future election is unknowable. Additionally, while we all have access to U.S. Census data, most of us do not have access to special modeled voter files that tell us this information for earlier elections. So some “guesstimating” is necessary for casual consumers of polls. CONTINUED
Diane Feldman, View from the Pearl
The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack