Will Rick Perry miss the main Republican debate Thursday night because he’s unpopular or because he’s unlucky? This turns out to be a far more difficult question that you might realize, and it’s one that apparently eludes the Fox News decision desk. CONT. Justin Wolfers (U. of Michigan), New York […] Read more »
How Fox News determined who qualified for prime-time GOP debate
Based on an average of the five most recent national polls, the candidates invited to be on stage for the 9:00 P.M. ET debate will be: Donald Trump (23.4%), Jeb Bush (12.0%), Scott Walker (10.2%), Mike Huckabee (6.6%), Ben Carson (5.8%), Ted Cruz (5.4%), Marco Rubio (5.4%), Rand Paul (4.8%), […] Read more »
The polling primary is underway
… Fox News has limited candidate participation in Thursday’s debate to the top 10 candidates according to an average of the five most recent national polls. Here’s the mystery: Fox News has not said which polls it will use for its average, or what is a legitimate survey. Welcome to […] Read more »
Pollsters to Networks: Please Don’t Use Polls to Decide Who Appears on the Debate Stage
Republican presidential hopefuls are closing in on a tight race: not for their party’s nomination, but for the chance to advocate for their party’s nomination during next week’s first 2016 debate. Whether they’ll get that chance depends entirely on how they’ve performed in recent national polls—a metric that some pollsters […] Read more »
Early polls don’t mean much. It’s still possible to report on them.
… We know from presidential general elections that polling this early is not correlated with outcomes in November. We know from presidential primary elections that poll surges are often ephemeral, in part because they reflect how the media covers primary candidates. For both reasons, we should discount where the candidates […] Read more »
Everything you ever wanted to know about how Washington Post polling works
Every few months, the Washington Post (in partnership with ABC News) offers the world a brand new bit of insight. This week, it was that Donald Trump leads the Republican field seeking the party’s presidential nomination, a result that likely prompted more than a few people to wonder, How did […] Read more »