We at Hart Research Associates take pride in the role we have played in advancing progressive candidates and causes over the past 49 years. This includes helping Democrats win the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 and, through our work for Priorities USA and other organizations, helping […] Read more »
The 2020 polling paradox: Accurate results in some key states but big misses in others
Polls have faced strident criticism after President Trump outperformed pre-election surveys nationally and in key states. Now that nearly all votes have been counted, a clearer picture of poll accuracy has emerged, showing that they struggled much more in certain states, while they were much more accurate in others. … […] Read more »
COVID made polls too pro-Biden
Polling error in 2020, while within the historical range of polling error, has caused a lot of heartburn among Democratic strategists, pollsters, and data analysts. We’re still at work understanding the 2020 election’s polling misses, but one theory that looks accurate is that the COVID-19 pandemic caused polls to overstate […] Read more »
Native Americans critique data, surveys following election
… Native Americans make up less than 2% of the U.S. population and often are listed in datasets as “other” or denoted with an asterisk. Even when surveyed, the results can be considered statistically insignificant because the sample size isn’t large enough or the margin of error is too great […] Read more »
Why the polls weren’t as wrong as you think
Voters who decided to back a presidential candidate at the last minute and an unprecedented, pandemic-induced surge of mail-in and absentee ballots across the country confounded pollsters trying to measure public opinion in the days leading up to November’s elections. But as the slow vote tallies continue to amass, while […] Read more »
Despite the 2020 election results, you can still trust polling. Mostly.
… In 2020, polls appear to have overconfidently predicted that Joe Biden would handily defeat incumbent President Trump. While researchers are sorting out the final numbers, some observers are arguing that polling has outlived its usefulness. … But while election polling definitely has problems that need to be studied, some […] Read more »