There are plenty of headlines proclaiming disaster for the polling field. In the last two election cycles, preelection polls have underestimated electoral support for President Donald Trump. In 2016, the problem seemed to be isolated to polls in specific states. In 2020, although vote totals are not certified, it’s clear […] Read more »
Why the polls weren’t as wrong as you think
Voters who decided to back a presidential candidate at the last minute and an unprecedented, pandemic-induced surge of mail-in and absentee ballots across the country confounded pollsters trying to measure public opinion in the days leading up to November’s elections. But as the slow vote tallies continue to amass, while […] Read more »
Why Senate Republicans start the next cycle from a position of strength
Joe Biden will face an enormous obstacle in his first two years of governing: The U.S. Senate. Republicans have already secured 50 seats in the upper chamber, and they might win two more once Georgia’s runoff elections are resolved. The best-case scenario for Biden is a 50-50 split, with future […] Read more »
The undecided verdict on 2020 polling
… Many of the poll-blamers ignore the fact that undecided voters are, well, undecided. As this column has noted before, pollsters are not mind-readers and polls are not crystal balls that can see the future. If someone is asked who they plan to support and they say they haven’t decided, […] Read more »
How did the Political Science Forecasters Do?
Key Points• Prior to the election, several prominent political scientists forecast the election in PS: Political Science and Politics.• In aggregate, the forecasts performed very well.• However, several individual forecasts missed the mark, and this election showed the importance of questioning the assumptions of models in the midst of an […] Read more »
Despite the 2020 election results, you can still trust polling. Mostly.
… In 2020, polls appear to have overconfidently predicted that Joe Biden would handily defeat incumbent President Trump. While researchers are sorting out the final numbers, some observers are arguing that polling has outlived its usefulness. … But while election polling definitely has problems that need to be studied, some […] Read more »