On this week’s episode of the PB/Polling Matters show Keiran Rob and Leo look back at 2016 and discuss the results from the recent survey of PB/Polling Matters listeners. We discuss what our biggest shock of 2016 was, who the biggest winners and losers were from the year and our […] Read more »
How pollsters could use social media data to improve election forecasts
Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 victory surprised almost everyone. But if pollsters had looked at Twitter, they might have recognized that the race was close — or so we learned in our recent research. Even when polls were showing a big lead for Hillary Clinton, real-time analysis of social media was […] Read more »
Voters Really Did Switch To Trump At The Last Minute
Donald Trump’s somewhat surprising win has forced many political analysts to wonder: Were we wrong all along in thinking Hillary Clinton had the upper hand, or was late-breaking movement to Trump part of the reason why polling averages missed his upset Electoral College victory? There’s certainly evidence that the polls […] Read more »
Lou Harris, pollster for presidents and others officeholders, dies at 95
Lou Harris, an influential pollster and political consultant who was among the first to provide polling services directly to candidates and officeholders and helped guide one client, a junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy, to the White House, died Dec. 17 at his home in Key West, […] Read more »
Louis Harris, Pollster at Forefront of American Trends, Dies at 95
Louis Harris, the nation’s best-known 20th-century pollster, who refined interpretive polling methods and took the pulse of voters and consumers through four decades of elections, wars, racial troubles and cultural revolutions that ran from tail fins to the internet, died on Saturday at his home in Key West, Fla. He […] Read more »
A modest proposal for better polls: Gallup and Fox News working together
… What if Fox were to collaborate with some politically neutral organization — say, Gallup — and do a joint poll, where they agree ahead of time on the questions and then they just start off the phone call with, “We’re calling from the Gallup Poll . . .” or “We’re calling […] Read more »