President Joe Biden’s first two and a half months in office have been far better received than former President Donald Trump’s. Biden’s been able to maintain an approval rating north of 50%; something Trump never did. Yet, a look at the data also reveals that Biden’s Democratic Party has likely […] Read more »
First Takes on the Election #2: What About the Polls?
… Putting the major polls together, their miss in last year’s presidential election was, on average, 4 percentage points, mainly because they underestimated the Trump vote; they also underestimated the Republican down-ballot votes by about the same margin. (Fivethirtyeight.com’s final averages of polls gave Biden an 8.4-point lead; he ended […] Read more »
The Death Of Polling Is Greatly Exaggerated
Polls probably aren’t at the top of your mind right now. We’re more than four months removed from the 2020 election, and we still have almost 20 months to go until the midterms. That’s why it’s the perfect time to launch the latest update to our FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings, which […] Read more »
The House: Unclear Lines, Clear Expectations
Key Points• Delays in the redistricting process mean that we won’t be releasing Crystal Ball House district ratings for the foreseeable future.• However, midterm history along with GOP advantages in redistricting make the Republicans clear, though not certain, favorites to win the House next year.• Recent midterm history helps illustrate […] Read more »
Can Biden make it ‘the economy, stupid’ again?
Eight weeks in, President Joe Biden has overseen a huge Covid relief win, surging vaccinations and declining case counts. As Wall Street sets new records, forecasters predict an economic boom. And yet, from his sixth day in office to his sixtieth, Biden’s approval rating barely budged. … And history suggests […] Read more »
Revisiting the ‘gold standard’ of polling: new methods outperformed traditional ones in 2020
Even before 2020 polling errors became evident, analysts wondered if we could trust the polls. After the election, concerns spiked — overall errors were even larger than in 2016. Frank Luntz went so far as to declare, “the polling profession is done.” We disagree. We think polling has a strong […] Read more »