… We have been fielding just one question since the start of the year: Who are you most likely to vote for in the upcoming presidential election? With the answers of: Definitely Republican candidate, Likely Republican candidate, Likely Democratic candidate, Definitely Democratic candidate, and not voting. This question focuses on […] Read more »
The State Of The Polls, 2016
Two years ago, in advance of the 2014 midterms and in conjunction with the release of FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings, I wrote an article headlined “Is The Polling Industry In Stasis Or In Crisis?” It pointed out a seeming contradiction: Although there were lots of reasons to be worried about the […] Read more »
A sharp exchange over election-year polling offers thoughts for the rest of us
In a political season marked by nonstop polling, a lively exchange took place recently about the state of public opinion research and what to believe about of all the numbers describing the state of the race. The context for the discussion was set by a series of national and state […] Read more »
Why Polls On Latinos Get it Wrong: Here’s What to Look For
The 2016 presidential election is well under way and understanding “the Latino vote” will be more important than ever. Yet the stories about how Latinos behave politically will often be contradictory, confusing, and outright nonsensical. The media is always eager to publish stories associated with data because numbers bring a […] Read more »
Chicago and Race: Perception, Polling and Reality
… Here at The Times’s polling department, we often try to assess the state of race relations and discrimination in the United States. It’s a difficult task because conversations about race often rely on coded language or careful discussion, which means there are certain things we can know through surveys, […] Read more »
Parsing the polls
In recent days, two sets of very smart people have disputed the nature and meaning of current polls. Rather than get myself in trouble by wading directly into the conflict, I’ll confine myself to offering a few thoughts on some of the issues that have been raised. CONT. Mark Mellman […] Read more »