When Monica Bouchard, 66, calls voters across the country, sometimes hundreds within a few hours, she makes sure to use “the best voice possible”: kind, clear, engaging and anything but monotonous. … Ms. Bouchard is one of more than 1,000 people telephoning voters ahead of the 2018 midterms as part […] Read more »
Role Of Polls During The Election Season
Midterm elections are always a little tricky for pollsters. What do polls about national issues and inclinations mean when control the House and Senate will be decided district by district and state by state? But this time around, there’s even less data and fewer polls to analyze. NPR’s Domenico Montanaro […] Read more »
How polling has changed since the 2016 election
Democratic Congressional candidates now hold a nine-point advantage over Republicans, according to the latest poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist. But can polls be trusted? In 2016, polls in key states showed Hillary Clinton winning handily. Donald Trump won all three. Judy Woodruff discusses with NPR’s Domenico Montanaro […] Read more »
Legendary Utah political pollster Dan Jones has died
“The Oracle” of Utah politics, Dan Jones, died Friday after a prolonged illness at the age of 84. Born in Ogden and raised on a farm in rural Idaho, Jones went on to teach American government to generations of young people and for decades was recognized as the state’s preeminent […] Read more »
Sorry, pundits, but you have no clue what will happen on Tuesday
… Polls remain our best tool for reading the electorate and discerning important trends, which is why journalists, handicappers, and campaign managers depend on them so much. Entire media companies are devoted to explaining them. But polls are not predictive. They are wobbly around the margins. Pollsters, the honest ones […] Read more »
Exit polls, election surveys and more: A guide for the 2018 midterms
… For more than a quarter-century, no matter which channel you were watching, much of that punditry ultimately derived from the same source: a nationwide survey of voters as they left their local polling places. … But on election night 2018, there will be an additional source of data on […] Read more »