… After studying 2016 election polling, the American Association for Public Opinion Research reported that it found no evidence of “shy” Trump voters. More recent studies challenged that, suggesting such voters might exist. Survey firms that correctly predicted the 2016 election have argued that they did so because of how […] Read more »
We predicted the states Biden would win 100 days before the election
… We developed a forecast of each state’s presidential vote based primarily on three fundamental factors: each state’s presidential vote in 2016; state economic conditions through June of the election year, and state presidential approval ratings based on surveys conducted in June and July of this year. … If Biden […] Read more »
What happened to that ‘blue wave’?
… As Americans have polarized, both the Democratic and Republican parties have become ever more central to politics. However, they have simultaneously lost their capacity to organize an effective collective response to social challenges. Democrats in particular have historically paid sporadic and superficial attention to the mechanics of voter engagement […] Read more »
Here are six big takeaways from the 2020 elections
… On average, the polls appear to have been off by about 2.5 to 3 percentage points this year. The absolute error in polls is not necessarily larger than in previous years. But, crucially, both public and private polls continued to overestimate Democratic vote share in Florida and in Midwestern […] Read more »
Interpreting the Early Results of the 2020 Election
What can the 2020 election teach us about polling and politics? On the afternoon after Election Day, Matt Grossmann hosts the first-ever live edition of the Science of Politics podcast with G. Elliott Morris, data journalist at The Economist to discuss where exactly the models went wrong (and what they […] Read more »
Who wins the Senate? Watch the presidential race
Senate races across the country are converging with the trend in the presidential race in that same state, underscoring the increasingly parliamentary nature of American elections. In 2016, for the first time since the direct election of all senators began in 1914, every Senate race finished the same way as […] Read more »