Democrats hoped this presidential election would be a cakewalk. In their eyes, the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, spent most of the spring alienating big chunks of the electorate, beginning with women. Meanwhile, the presumptive Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, has run a careful, well-funded, well-honed campaign. What could go wrong? […] Read more »
When Should You Start Worrying About the Polls? Not Quite Yet
Since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, several national polls have shown him narrowing the gap with his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, or even leading. But the election is more than five months away. When should you start to care about polls? With some caveats, we believe the answer […] Read more »
Parsing the polls
In recent days, two sets of very smart people have disputed the nature and meaning of current polls. Rather than get myself in trouble by wading directly into the conflict, I’ll confine myself to offering a few thoughts on some of the issues that have been raised. CONT. Mark Mellman […] Read more »
In Defense of the Reuters/Ipsos Poll
To the Editor: In “Stop the Polling Insanity” (Op-Ed, May 20), Norman Ornstein and Alan I. Abramowitz cited the Reuters/Ipsos poll as Exhibit A in an indictment of “cringeworthy” polling-based articles. Their swipe at us is based on a flawed argument. CONT. Maurice Tamman (Reuters), New York Times Read more »
Explaining Hillary Clinton’s Lost Ground in the Polls
A month ago, Hillary Clinton had a big lead in national and battleground state polls. Today, she has a modest lead at best. A few surveys even show Donald Trump ahead. What happened? Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party’s base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the […] Read more »
Why Donald Trump’s polling advantage may be a bit misleading
A slew of surveys have come out over the past few days, exploring the state of the presidential race and the extent to which Americans are fed up with the two options that are likely be on the ballot in November. But it’s worth introducing a bit more context to […] Read more »