… We’ve all read the disclaimers such as “The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.” My research has found that such statements influence the level of trust readers place in a poll’s results. Unfortunately, their trust is misplaced. A dirty […] Read more »
NOVA: Prediction by the Numbers
Predictions underlie nearly every aspect of our lives, from sports, politics, and medical decisions to the morning commute. With the explosion of digital technology, the internet, and “big data,” the science of forecasting is flourishing. But why do some predictions succeed spectacularly while others fail abysmally? And how can we […] Read more »
Dark money group America First Policies is running a pro-Trump polling operation. Here is an inside look at its secretive work.
America First Policies, a nonprofit group with close ties to President Donald Trump, has hired Trump’s pollsters to conduct a wide range of political polling and research that experts say resembles the kind of expensive work the Republican National Committee has performed for prior GOP administrations. Such a practice breaks […] Read more »
Nothing Affects the Washington Climate Like Presidential Job Approval
There are many ways in which the Trump presidency is historically distinctive, but one of the most consequential is how unpopular it has been right from the start. Before Trump, even those new presidents who won a close election or entered office amidst controversy enjoyed a “honeymoon period” of elevated […] Read more »
Are Trump supporters being dishonest with pollsters? Probably not.
This past weekend Marquette University Law School Professor Charles Franklin published an interesting analysis of President Donald Trump’s approval rating. He noted that Trump tends to do better in polls in which there isn’t a live interviewer present. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump (who put together some really good charts) […] Read more »
Trump Losing College-Educated Whites? He Never Won Them in the First Place
After Donald J. Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, one data point from the network exit polls jumped out at analysts: his two-point win among college-educated white voters. Many pre-election polls had suggested they would favor Hillary Clinton. And now, more than a year later, polls again show […] Read more »