It’s no secret that academic survey researchers and public pollsters have very different goals for their work. Public pollsters are gathering data to quickly measure the current environment and find out who thinks what. In contrast, academic researchers ponder why the environment is what it is, and what the implications […] Read more »
Explaining 2 Polls With Conflicting Findings
The crowded field contending to succeed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in City Hall got an unexpected jolt last week from two polls with seemingly divergent findings. The first poll was accompanied by a news release proclaiming “Weiner Surpasses Quinn Among N.Y.C. Dems,” while a day later the other poll came […] Read more »
Why Are You So Smart, Stan Greenberg?
Stan Greenberg used numbers and intelligence to help get Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and other political figures elected. The CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and co-founder of Democracy Corps with James Carville and Bob Shrum came into the spotlight during the 1992 Presidential campaign when the Man From Hope took […] Read more »
‘Big Data’ threatens poll standards
Campaign polling is crossing over into dangerous territory as it meets “Big Data,” the latest craze in campaigning. … The hitch for political pollsters is that these new methods threaten to trample on privacy and confidentiality, as traditionally practiced by survey researchers. [cont.] David Hill (Hill Research Consultants), The Hill Read more »
Video: When Pollsters Get it Wrong – You Have a Right to Know
Darrell Bricker of Ipsos Public Affairs: How pollsters can do a more effective job at predicting election outcomes. Read more »
Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey
Preliminary results from the July–December 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that the number of American homes with only wireless telephones continues to grow. Nearly two in every five American homes (38.2%) had only wireless telephones (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) during the second […] Read more »