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You are here: Home / Archives for Polling

How Trump Broke the Polls

May 3, 2020 at 12:31 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Harry Enten: “The polls clearly show that Biden is ahead and by a larger margin than Hillary Clinton was on the eve of the 2016 election. You might think that would make people believe that Biden is more likely to win, even if it were far from a certainty.”

“Yet, the evidence suggests that Trump’s surprising 2016 victory has warped people into believing that Trump has some magic up his sleeve. They don’t believe he will lose.”

“An average of recent polls finds that a majority of voters (about 55%) believe that Trump will defeat Biden in the election. Trump’s edge on this question has remained fairly consistent over time… Historically, the question of who people thought would win had actually been a pretty good predictor.”

Filed Under: Polling

People Are Suddenly Willing to Talk to Pollsters

April 12, 2020 at 5:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Hill: “Lonely Americans trapped in their homes because of the coronavirus outbreak are answering their phones to talk to political pollsters in big numbers, a reversal of fortunes for an industry that has recently struggled to connect with people.”

Filed Under: Polling

Trump’s High Approval Ratings May Be Misleading

February 20, 2020 at 11:31 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Economist: “Even after correcting for demographic biases, pollsters’ data can still be unrepresentative. They may have the right shares of Latino voters and boomers, but nevertheless have too many Republicans or Democrats. This concern is pronounced when an event causes especially good, or bad, news for a political party. At such times surveys can suddenly be swamped with partisans who are eager to voice their love, or hate, for the president.”

“In the wake of Mr Trump’s acquittal in the Senate, pollsters suspect that such a bias could be affecting polls. Courtney Kennedy, the director for survey research at the Pew Research Center, says that there is a ‘strong possibility’ that the recent uptick in Mr Trump’s ratings has a wave of optimistic Republicans as its source. She says that outlets can control this problem by adjusting their data to have the correct shares of Democratic- and Republican-leaning voters, but the idea is relatively new and few pollsters have data good enough to perform such corrections.”

“The Economist’s analysis of polls taken during Mr Trump’s impeachment proceedings affirms Ms Kennedy’s suspicion. In polls that weight their data to represent America’s partisan balance or the results of the 2016 election, the share of adults who approve of Mr Trump’s job as president has risen by half a percentage point since impeachment proceedings began in earnest last October. But in polls that do not, Mr Trump’s ratings have increased by over three percentage points.”

Filed Under: Polling

Why There Aren’t More Nevada Polls

February 16, 2020 at 8:44 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Vox: “Although the caucuses — which will take place on February 22 this year — have been the third Democratic primary contest in the nation since 2008, the state is notoriously hard to poll.”

“So hard, in fact, that until Friday, the most recent poll included in RealClearPolitics’ Nevada polling average — from Suffolk University — was more than a month old.”

“We now have exactly one recent poll of the state, courtesy of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which shows Sen. Bernie Sanders in the lead among likely caucus-goers with 25 percent support.”

Filed Under: 2020 Campaign, Polling

A Major Shift In Election Polling

February 5, 2020 at 8:34 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Members, Polling

Polling Forward

January 20, 2020 at 3:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Gabe Fleisher has an interesting interview with pollster Ann Selzer and why she’s been so successful at polling the Iowa caucuses.

The bottom line: Selzer doesn’t try to model likely turnout in future caucuses based on past voting behavior: “We ask everybody who is a registered voter if they’re likely to caucus on the Democratic side, no matter whether they are registered Democrat, Republican, or Independent. We ask all of them.”

“In 2008, that meant her final pre-caucus poll projected that a “jaw-dropping” 60% of caucus-goers would be first-time participants in the primary process. That prediction received widespread skepticism, but on caucus night, 57% of attendees were new participants, fueling Obama’s upset — and cementing Selzer’s reputation.”

Selzer calls her approach “polling forward.” She explains: “Had I done anything that looked backward at what happened before, I would have been blinded from seeing what was coming in the future… Other people will weight their data to look like past caucusgoers and other sorts of things or decide that it’s really only registered Democrats that matter, that they don’t mind losing what might be happening with others. But if something big is happening, they won’t see it. They will be quite literally blinded to it.”

Filed Under: Polling

Trump May Be More Unpopular Than His Approval Shows

January 17, 2020 at 8:13 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Peter Enns and Jonathon Schuldt: “Does the standard presidential approval question actually capture what voters think of Trump’s job performance? There are several reasons it might not tell the full story. For one, in this hyper-partisan era, presidential approval numbers have become increasingly polarized and don’t move around all that much, so they may now say more about which “side” people are on (pro-Trump or anti-Trump, Republican or Democrat) than voters’ actual evaluation of how the president is doing.”

“So we have worked to develop a hopefully more nuanced approach to measuring presidential approval, where we ask respondents how favorably they feel toward Trump relative to other notable Republicans.”

Filed Under: Polling, White House

What Makes a Bad State Poll

November 14, 2019 at 10:32 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Matthew Yglesias digs into yesterday’s poll showing top Democrats leading President Trump in Georgia and notes “the fine print on the poll contains a sentence that should be a huge red flag to contemporary consumers of political polling: The data are weighted based on race, age and sex to accurately reflect the demographics of the state.”

“There’s nothing wrong with weighting your sample based on race, age, and sex to match the demographics of the state. That’s standard practice in the industry. The problem is what the poll didn’t weight on — educational attainment. Many state-level polls omitted this factor in 2016, leading them to underestimate Trump’s strength in key swing states. The most responsible pollsters responded to 2016 by making sure to improve their weighting. But many pollsters — especially those doing state-level polling — continue not to weight by education.”

“This failure to weight not only leads to errors (which could be compensated for by averaging), it leads to systematic bias against Trump and the GOP, meaning everyone who publishes or disseminates unweighted polls ends up contributing to misinformation about the real state of American politics.”

Filed Under: Polling

National and State Polls Show The Same Thing

November 6, 2019 at 4:56 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Nate Silver: “A common refrain in coverage of the Democratic primary campaign is that the race looks much different in the early states than it does nationally, with a wider playing field, greater strength for upstart candidates such as Pete Buttigieg, and signs of weakness for the leader in national polls, Joe Biden.”

“The refrain is true if you look only at Iowa or only at New Hampshire, but it’s mostly not true overall. Taken collectively, polls in the four early states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — tell almost the same story as national polls: Biden leads, Elizabeth Warren is in second, Bernie Sanders is in third, and Buttigieg is still a fairly distant fourth.”

Filed Under: Polling

State of the Polls, 2019

November 5, 2019 at 10:45 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Nate Silver: “Much maligned for their performance in the 2016 general election — and somewhat unfairly so, since the overall accuracy of the polls was only slightly below average that year by historical standards — American election polls have been quite accurate since then. Their performance was very strong in the 2018 midterms, despite the challenge of having to poll dozens of diverse congressional districts around the country, many of which had not had a competitive election in years. Polls have also generally been accurate in the various special elections and off-year gubernatorial elections that have occurred since 2016, even though those are also often difficult races to poll.”

“Does that mean everything is looking up in the industry? Well, no. We’ll introduce some complications in a moment. But I do want to re-emphasize that opening takeaway, since the media is just flatly wrong when it asserts that the polls can’t be trusted. In fact, American election polls are about as accurate as they’ve always been.”

Filed Under: Polling

Who Is Really Leading the Democratic Presidential Race?

October 24, 2019 at 2:15 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “A number of things can affect a poll’s results, including the wording of a horse-race question and the order that items are asked. In CNN and Fox News polls this year, respondents have typically been asked for their opinions on each of the Democratic presidential candidates, among other questions, before being queried about their vote preference.”

“In Quinnipiac’s polls — as well as those conducted by Monmouth University, which have also shown Ms. Warren climbing steadily — people have not typically been asked to evaluate the candidates one-by-one before giving their vote choice.”

“If such small differences in survey structure are indeed having an effect on results, it may reflect the fact that many respondents are not yet certain about their feelings.”

Filed Under: 2020 Campaign, Polling

Beware Polling in a Hurricane

October 18, 2019 at 1:31 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Members, Polling

Trump Rips Fox News Over Poll

October 10, 2019 at 9:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump blasted Fox News over their latest poll showing the majority of Americans now showing support for impeaching and removing him from office.

Said Trump: “From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good Fox News Poll. Whoever their pollster is, they suck.”

He added: “But Fox News is also much different than it used to be in the good old days… Fox News doesn’t deliver for US anymore. It is so different than it used to be. Oh well, I’m President!”

Filed Under: Polling

How Impeachment Could Warp the Polls

September 30, 2019 at 1:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Mark Blumenthal: “The impeachment story is blowing up. It’s a high-stakes moment — for President Trump, for Democrats and for pollsters. It’s also a scary moment for polling.”

“Yes, people who follow politics are now intensely interested in whether the latest developments might shift public opinion about Trump and impeachment. But when news is exceptionally big, a growing body of evidence suggests it can throw off the accuracy of polling itself.”

Filed Under: Polling

New IPhone Feature Poses Threat to Pollsters

September 27, 2019 at 6:27 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Economist: “In its latest software release, Apple has made it possible for iPhone users to send all unknown callers to voicemail automatically. Although the feature will no doubt prove useful to the millions of customers whose peaceful suppers are ruined by fake calls, it could be disastrous for the faltering public-polling industry.”

“The challenges telephone pollsters face have been growing. Polling by phone has become very expensive, as the number of Americans willing to respond to unexpected or unknown callers has dropped. Back in the mid-to-late-20th century response rates were as high as 70%, according to SSRS, a market research and polling firm. But the Pew Research Centre estimates that it received completed interviews from a mere 6% of the people it tried to survey in 2018.”

Filed Under: Polling

Democrats Stuck In Doom Loop of Premature Polling

September 23, 2019 at 9:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Matthew Yglesias: “Democratic voters are stuck in a self-destructive loop.”

“The loop begins and ends with polls. Pollsters know that Democrats want to know who is the strongest candidate against President Donald Trump, so they conduct a lot of head-to-head polls matching Trump up against various contenders. The polls show that the best-known Democrats — former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren — are the strongest candidates against him, which likely boosts them in the polls. This makes it hard for the lesser-known candidates to get attention, which further ensures they’ll do poorly in the head-to-head polls against Trump.”

“The problem is that head-to-head polls at this stage in the race overwhelmingly reflect the challenger’s name recognition rather than anything that would help you predict an election outcome that’s more than a year in the future.”

Filed Under: 2020 Campaign, Polling

Polls In Key States Are Few and Far Between

September 19, 2019 at 7:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Aaron Blake: “The divergence in Iowa polls highlights a challenge for observers early in the 2020 election: While we have an abundance of national polls, early-state polls have been few and far between, and that makes it incredibly difficult to draw conclusions about whose organization and message are appealing to the voters who matter most. It’s not clear yet whether we have a true and accurate picture of the race, even as it stands now.”

“The pace of early 2020 polls is significantly slower in Iowa and in New Hampshire than it was four years ago. The poll Wednesday was just the second live-caller poll released in Iowa since the beginning of August, compared with six over the same period in 2015. In New Hampshire, there have been just two over the same span in 2019, compared with four in 2015.”

“If you expand the universe to all quality polls and stretch it further back in the race, the pattern holds. There have been just seven quality polls, including automated and online surveys, in Iowa since the start of May, compared with 14 over the same period in 2015.”

Filed Under: 2020 Campaign, Polling

Pollster Admits to Putting Thumb On the Scale

September 2, 2019 at 11:38 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Members, Polling

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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