It’s been 6 years since our mentor, colleague, and friend’s death. Warren Mitofsky was a clear thinker and major innovator of the public polling community. Beyond his methodological rigor, he communicated long-lasting, yet, simple messages to the profession. His thoughts remain vital through the 2012 election cycle. Despite this year’s […] Read more »
What if there are fewer polls in 2016?
… [Gallup’s Frank] Newport warned in a post-election commentary that because of the popularity of aggregators like [Nate] Silver, “We could see significantly fewer polls conducted in the 2016 election—at the state and national level—than in this election.” … Instead of being frightened by Newport’s nightmare vision of a 2016 presidential […] Read more »
Frank Newport: Gallup’s election polling was sound
Gallup’s publicly released election polling has been the object of review and scrutiny this year, as has always been the case since Gallup first published pre-election polls in the 1936 election. [cont.] Frank Newport, Gallup (Omaha World-Herald) Read more »
Gallup’s 2012 election polling debacle: what went wrong?
Gallup was very wrong. Their final poll had Mitt Romney defeating President Obama by 1 percentage point, after giving Romney a lead as high as 7 pt during the final month of the campaign. It seems now their final poll could end up being nearly 5 pt off the mark. […] Read more »
Pollsters reassess their methods after 2012 election miscalculations
Polling outlets that were hammered ceaselessly by both campaigns throughout the campaign cycle are reassessing their methods in the wake of President Obama’s convincing election victory. “We constantly review and tweak some of the things we do and if the data bears it out, we make changes,” Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank […] Read more »
Obama Campaign Polls: How The Internal Data Got It Right
Summing up the lessons learned from a massive investment in data and technology, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has a blunt message for pollsters: “We spent a whole bunch of time figuring out that American polling is broken.” At a Politico forum on Monday, Messina spoke about the campaign’s “three […] Read more »