The Upside to 2020’s Polling Misses

Natalie Jackson: “It is increasingly clear that how a poll contacts people — formerly a key heuristic for assessing poll quality — no longer tells us what it used to about accuracy.”

“The 2020 primary pre-election polling task force report found that whether the survey was online or by telephone had no bearing on accuracy, and the new task force report presentation indicated the same finding. As a result of their own analysis showing the same thing, FiveThirtyEight has retired the landline and cell phone live-caller survey as the ‘gold standard.’”

“The field letting go of its attachment to one source as more accurate than others will allow other methodologies to become more prominent and encourage further experimentation with new methodologies.”