The legalization of same-sex marriage is a potent example of a dominant theme in American history: Over time, civil rights expand, and discrimination ebbs. … As a result, it’s fair to divide the major issues in American political life into two broad categories. In one category are the rights-based issues […] Read more »
Is it the end for telephone polling?
Last week I went along to the first public meeting of the investigation into what went wrong with the polling before the general election. It is the British Polling Council’s attempt to find out why all the pollsters spotted that the Scottish National Party was going to do well and […] Read more »
To The Editor: Just say no to horse-race coverage
… Surveys can be useful for gauging what voters care about. But using them to predict elections has become a reckless addiction. Let’s get off them. Consumers of journalism can help. Every time you read, listen to or click on a predictive political story, you enable the angels of our […] Read more »
A Better Way to Keep Score for the 2016 Field
Every once in a while, a really good idea or new way of looking at things comes along that is worth replicating. Early this month, J. Ann Selzer, president of Des Moines-based Selzer & Company and pollster for The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News, offered up a better way […] Read more »
How SurveyMonkey Is Coping After the Death of Dave Goldberg
On the first day back to work after the death of Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey, employees at the Silicon Valley company gathered to mourn. … Since that meeting on May 4, SurveyMonkey’s leadership has had to navigate the process of replacing Mr. Goldberg, while running a company […] Read more »
Polling the Public: A joint survey from Public Agenda and WNYC
Will Friedman, the president of Public Agenda, and Carolin Hagelskamp, the vice president and director of research at Public Agenda, discuss their methodology for finding out which issues matter most to likely voters in our region and preview a new joint public opinion poll they’re crafting with WNYC. Brian Lehrer […] Read more »