In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in the presidential election. Could we see another landslide like this in 2016? Or does today’s political environment make that impossible? Tune in to the first episode of “Politics and Polls” as Professors Julian E. Zelizer and Sam Wang debate this issue […] Read more »
Veteran Pollsters to Join Donald Trump’s Campaign
Donald J. Trump will expand his roster of pollsters, with plans to add three new ones as his team shifts gears toward a general election with new urgency, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump, who once decried the use of pollsters on a campaign, will now […] Read more »
How Polling Can Go Wrong
When people complain to me about a poll, it’s usually because they think the demographics are wrong. The pollsters polled too many white people, commenters might say, or too many old people. Or perhaps the sample of Hispanic voters doesn’t seem quite Democratic enough. Most of the time, these comments […] Read more »
Polling Matters: Brexit chaos. What happens now?
On this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast Keiran Pedley and Leo Barasi try and make sense of what has happened in the past week – as news of Theresa May’s poll lead over Boris Johnson and Michael Gove’s decision to stand for Tory leader breaks all around them. They discuss why […] Read more »
Are the polls skewed against Trump?
Is there a pool of voters who are too embarrassed to admit to pollsters they’re voting for Donald Trump? As Trump falls consistently behind Hillary Clinton in general-election polls, his campaign is counting on it. According to one theory — referred to as the “shy Trump voter” — there’s a […] Read more »
EU Referendum: Did the polls all get it wrong again?
While a few of the pollsters got the referendum result almost spot-on, others meant that studying the polls failed to give a clear indication of what the outcome would be on the morning of 24 June. Many people believed that there would be a late shift to Remain in the […] Read more »