Making Sense of the Confusing Recent Polling

Dan Pfeiffer: “Riding the pollercoaster is an exercise in insanity. A few things to keep in mind (I like to reiterate these reminders every month or so): first, polling is an inexact science. There is a margin for error. A poll that shows Harris up two and one that shows her down two are essentially the same.”

“Second — and I can’t emphasize this enough — polling is not supposed to predict the future. It tells us our present. Let’s say the NYT poll is right. Harris is down two in North Carolina now, but has more than a month to make up that gap. Finally, it is totally okay to ignore all of the polls, but if you must look,  focus on the averages. They smooth out the statistical variance inherent in individual polls.”