The debate over what factors caused pollsters to err in 2016 is likely to continue for some time, as is the argument as to what extent the miss represents either a critical failure for the industry or simply a demonstration of overcertainty by pundits and forecasters. But regardless of the […] Read more »
Are Telephone Polls Understating Support for Trump?
Five months after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, public opinion polls find him with the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern history at this stage of a presidency. Given the criticism of election polling in 2016, it is reasonable to ask if public opinion polls are […] Read more »
Democrats burned by polling blind spot
As they investigate the forces behind the party’s stunning losses in November, Democrats are coming to a troubling conclusion. The party didn’t just lose among rural white voters on Election Day, it may have failed to capture them in its pre-election polling as well. Many pollsters and strategists believe that […] Read more »
A conversation with Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg
Renowned Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has advised the likes of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela. But he first made a name for himself studying white working class voters. His seminal 1985 report on so-called Reagan Democrats examined why auto workers were abandoning the Democratic Party in Macomb County, […] Read more »
Why Donald Trump’s low approval rating may mean less than you think
Social media erupted into paroxysms of schadenfreude over the weekend with the discovery that President Trump’s daily approval rating from Gallup had hit a new low of 37 percent. That figure is lower than Barack Obama experienced at any point over the course of his presidency. On a daily basis, […] Read more »
Kellyanne’s Alternative Universe
… Just a year ago, she was a knockabout GOP pollster and talking head, a casino worker’s daughter who’s never quite shaken her South Jersey accent. But she’d understood something about the electorate that others had missed, and now here she was: perhaps the most powerful woman in America, a […] Read more »