America’s political pollsters could be missing the X factor in the 2018 elections — “hidden voters”

… The question that keeps emerging is who is not on pollsters’ 2018 radar. That matters greatly because between now and November’s vote, there will be a tsunami of horse race coverage delivered in authoritative tones. However, pollsters will tell you that their analyses are more vaporous; that they are […] Read more »

How many Americans really misuse opioids? Why scientists still aren’t sure

Defining opioids. Darwin Brandis/shutterstock.com Joseph Palamar, New York University Langone Medical Center With rates of prescription opioid use disorder and opioid-involved overdose deaths on the rise, the U.S. opioid crisis appears to be continuing unabated. Data on overdose and death are pretty reliable. But there’s still much that’s unknown about […] Read more »

Why Polling Can Be So Hard

Some states and congressional districts are a lot harder to poll than others, and this can have major consequences. … Here’s a tour of some of the challenges we’ve tackled in conducting polls of a dozen of the most competitive congressional districts, what we’ve done about them, and what we […] Read more »