How does this election year compare with past elections? What do Gallup’s historical measures suggest about today’s political landscape — and what does this mean for President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects? Gallup’s Director of U.S. Social Research Lydia Saad and Senior Editor Jeff Jones join the podcast to discuss presidential […] Read more »
Reading the polls? Keep the grains of salt handy
The belated arrival of the party nominating conventions brought with it a slew of polls measuring where voters stand on the presidential race, and the conventional wisdom around those polls suggests they all say the same thing: Joe Biden is ahead of Donald Trump by a margin that’s generally larger […] Read more »
The National Polls: 2016 vs. 2020 Before the Conventions
Key Points• Several national pollsters conducted surveys on the eve of the convention season in both 2016 and 2020. We compared them to see how the race was different from four years ago.• Compared to four years ago, the parties are more unified; Biden is leading with independents after Clinton […] Read more »
The Resource Trap
Right now, things could hardly be looking brighter for Democrats. At the top of the ticket, the presidential race is looking as good as they could ever have hoped. Downballot, their majority in the House is looking sturdy and their chances of winning control of the Senate are very good, […] Read more »
A Defense of Election Forecasting Models
Key Points• While there is a legitimate debate about the public utility of forecast models, these are tools people in politics, finance, and media use to understand the political environment and make informed decisions. These private goods have corresponding public ones.• Campaign forecasting models, at least the Decision Desk HQ/Øptimus […] Read more »
A Resource for State Preelection Polling
Post-mortem analysis of the 2016 election found that a failure to adjust for overrepresentation of college graduates was among the reasons many state-level polls underestimated support for Donald Trump. Voters who graduated from a four-year college are more likely to answer surveys than other adults and, in recent years, they […] Read more »