A deluge of cheap partisan polls has swamped a shrinking number of high-quality, nonpartisan surveys, making it hard to know who is really ahead in many political campaigns. The solution? More nonpartisan surveys. On Sunday, the research firm YouGov, in partnership with The New York Times and CBS News, released […] Read more »
Exclude the excluders
It’s long past time the press stopped publishing polls that do not sample cellphones. If an enterprising pollster offered a survey that, say, excluded everyone ages 30-44 or those over age 65, no one would pay any attention to it — and rightly so. Yet news outlets regularly publish polls […] Read more »
Video: Likely Voters – You Have a Right to Know
In the latest “You Have a Right to Know” webisode, Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, looks at political polling including the differences between gen pop, eligible, likely, and true voters, methods of dealing with non-voters, and the pros and cons of various models used in political polling. […] Read more »
How the Rise of Cellphones Affects Surveys
… Cellphone use has become increasingly pervasive across all demographic groups, but Americans who use only a cellphone are more likely to be Hispanic, younger, renters or less affluent. By increasing the number of wireless phones dialed, pollsters get a more representative sample, one that includes all demographic groups, including […] Read more »
How to Read the Polls in This Year’s Midterms
With four months to go until this year’s midterm elections, perhaps the only thing clear about the fight for the Senate is that it will pose challenges to public polling. There’s always the possibility that the polls could miss the outcome in a close contest. Polls have missed the result […] Read more »
Why Polls Can Sometimes Get Things So Wrong
In the aftermath of Eric Cantor’s loss and Thad Cochran’s narrow runoff victory, you might be tempted to conclude that political polling is losing its utility. It isn’t. The science of polling is sound, but if you ask the wrong group of people your poll questions, you can get the […] Read more »