In the latest “You Have a Right to Know” webisode, Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, looks at political polling including the differences between gen pop, eligible, likely, and true voters, methods of dealing with non-voters, and the pros and cons of various models used in political polling. […] Read more »
What’s the value of early Senate polls?
Some recent discussions of Senate forecasting models have looked at current differences among the models, mainly ours and The Upshot’s. One key factor that has differentiated them is polls. Our model hasn’t incorporated polling data, although we’ll be doing so shortly. The Upshot’s model has factored in available polling data […] Read more »
How the Rise of Cellphones Affects Surveys
… Cellphone use has become increasingly pervasive across all demographic groups, but Americans who use only a cellphone are more likely to be Hispanic, younger, renters or less affluent. By increasing the number of wireless phones dialed, pollsters get a more representative sample, one that includes all demographic groups, including […] Read more »
How to Read the Polls in This Year’s Midterms
With four months to go until this year’s midterm elections, perhaps the only thing clear about the fight for the Senate is that it will pose challenges to public polling. There’s always the possibility that the polls could miss the outcome in a close contest. Polls have missed the result […] Read more »
When Senate Polls Start to Matter
When does a lead in the polls start to matter? At the risk of oversimplifying, this can be thought of as a function of two things: How big the lead is and how much time there is until the election. With this in mind, the table above displays the winning […] Read more »
Why Polls Can Sometimes Get Things So Wrong
In the aftermath of Eric Cantor’s loss and Thad Cochran’s narrow runoff victory, you might be tempted to conclude that political polling is losing its utility. It isn’t. The science of polling is sound, but if you ask the wrong group of people your poll questions, you can get the […] Read more »