… In the lead-up to Iowa and New Hampshire’s contests, scores of polls were conducted. In Nevada, where Democrats will caucus on Saturday and Republicans on Tuesday, only five surveys have been published this year. So why, when American political junkies are used to binging on statistics, are there so […] Read more »
Polling can be useful, even when imprecise
… A National Academy of Sciences panel warned in 2013 that declining response rates “threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues.” … Accurate surveys matter for a lot more than handicapping elections, marketing potato chips, or even conducting […] Read more »
The South Carolina push poll controversy, explained
If you live in an early primary state in 2016, it’s a good bet you’ve been contacted by at least one political campaign, advocacy group or pollster. But you might not have been able to tell exactly which of those groups called you – especially if you live in South […] Read more »
Nate Silver Reports On The 2016 Election
Nate Silver analyzes polls and predicts election outcomes on his website, FiveThirtyEight. This year’s is “maybe the most fascinating nomination race that we’ve ever seen,” he says. Fresh Air Read more »
Polling Is Ubiquitous, But Is It Bad For Democracy?
New Yorker writer Jill Lepore examines the history of polling in America. She tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that today’s polls may be less reliable — and more influential — than ever before. Fresh Air Read more »
How media coverage shapes presidential polling more than we think
Pundits tell us all the time that media coverage is driving the current Presidential primary, that Donald Trump and other outsider candidates are only doing well because they attract so much attention from the press. But in an era when people can choose their media sources to match what they […] Read more »