I haven’t had much good news for Bernie Sanders supporters this year, so let me go out of my way to provide some today: There are very good reasons to question a new Monmouth poll that shows Hillary Rodham Clinton leading by 41 percentage points in Iowa. Most other polls […] Read more »
Why we’re experimenting with online polling
The Los Angeles Times is releasing its first ever online poll, a snapshot of residents in our community and their thoughts about their neighborhoods, and the advantages and disadvantages of living here. … Phone polls have long been considered the standard, but the polling industry is in flux. Some of […] Read more »
Flaws in Polling Data Exposed as U.S. Campaign Season Heats Up
… Are the polls correct? While that is hardly a new question, doubts are intensifying after a series of high-profile misfires around the world in the past year, notably in Greece, Israel and the UK. As politics and business lean increasingly on surveys and data, technological and social shifts are […] Read more »
Iowa polls have a big problem
… Most polls that purport to provide Iowa caucus results simply ask each interviewee whether they are likely to attend a caucus. The tendency to say yes yields responses so highly inflated as to be worthless. … Unlike public pollsters, campaigns pay substantial sums to purchase lists of previous attendees […] Read more »
The problem with polls
… Once a seemingly infallible cornerstone of the political system, public opinion polls have racked up a few big-time fails in recent years, embarrassments that compelled a leading firm to conduct an internal audit to find out what went wrong. Analysts are also openly questioning whether the industry, whose leaders […] Read more »
Election Polling: When ‘Who Will Win?’ Beats ‘Who Do You Like?’
… Americans have watched for months—with 14 more months to go—as the poll numbers for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Bush, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Bernie Sanders and other White House hopefuls have gyrated up and down, depending on the ebb and flow of the news and the debates. These […] Read more »