… Focus groups and dial sessions were the cutting edge of 1994. They’re laughably antiquated today. And what’s more, they were never a perfect approximation of public opinion. … The problem for Frank Luntz isn’t that people have gotten “more contentious and argumentative.” The problem is that his two nifty […] Read more »
Will Afghan Polling Data Help Alleviate Election Fraud?
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has commissioned a series of polls to see who Afghans favor in the April election. But between security challenges and “social desirability” biases, it can be difficult to impossible to get a clear read of the Afghan people. CONT. Sean Carberry, NPR Read more »
Polling Comes to Afghanistan, Suggesting Limit to Sway of President Karzai
In the 12 years since the United States helped oust the Taliban, Afghanistan has held four national elections. But Afghans are only now experiencing a phenomenon that has been upending conventional wisdom in more established democracies for decades: polling. Three recent polls are giving Afghans a crash course in front-runners, […] Read more »
Step Away From The 2016 Polls
I don’t hate polls. I am not all that bothered by talk of a 2016 presidential campaign that is almost three years away. What does make me apoplectic, however, is watching political commentators seriously analyze a poll taken in 2013 about potential 2016 presidential candidates. I’m talking specifically about the […] Read more »
The uninsured don’t like Obamacare. But seniors didn’t like Medicare Part D — and signed up anyway
Of late, there’ve been a rash of bad poll results for Obamacare (and also a few good ones). The most interesting comes from a New York Times/CBS poll showing that a majority of the uninsured disapprove of the new health law. That’s potentially significant, as it seems logical that the […] Read more »
Latin America gets its own 538.com, and it beats the polls in Chile
The 2012 presidential election in the United States saw an increase in the popularity of poll aggregators, such as Drew Linzer at Votamatic, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight and Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium. … They proved that aggregating polls could be more useful than using a single poll to […] Read more »