… The simplest and most popular way to combine predictions is to take the average of everyone’s predictions and then use it as a kind of index for the group’s prediction. This uses all the forecasts and hence is at least thinking along the right track. Unfortunately, however, the simple […] Read more »
A 2016 Review: Why Key State Polls Were Wrong About Trump
Nearly seven months after the presidential election, pollsters are still trying to answer a question that has rattled trust in their profession: Why did pre-election polls show Hillary Clinton leading Donald J. Trump in the battleground states that decided the presidency? Is political polling fundamentally broken? Or were the errors […] Read more »
Sergio Bendixen, pioneer pollster of Hispanics, dies at 68
Sergio Bendixen, the first Hispanic to run a U.S. presidential campaign who later pioneered public-opinion polling among Latinos, died late Friday in Miami. He was 68. CONT. Patricia Mazzei & Alex Harris, Miami Herald Read more »
Are UK pollsters headed for another embarrassing election?
Will Jennings, University of Southampton and Patrick Sturgis, University of Southampton Following the political surprises of 2015 and 2016, there has been much reflection and debate on the accuracy of the polls in the run-up to the impending snap-election of 2017. It is fair to say that, although perhaps somewhat […] Read more »
The more a poll mentions Republicans, the less popular the party’s health care bill
It’s clear enough that the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill that would overhaul Obamacare that passed the House earlier this month, isn’t very popular. It’s unpopular enough, for example, that a candidate for the House in Montana would rather face criminal charges than answer a question about it. […] Read more »
Donald Trump’s Base Is Shrinking
A widely held tenet of the current conventional wisdom is that while President Trump might not be popular overall, he has a high floor on his support. Trump’s sizable and enthusiastic base — perhaps 35 to 40 percent of the country — won’t abandon him any time soon, the theory […] Read more »