tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/election-polling-95604/articleselection polling – The Conversation2024-02-12T13:39:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224882024-02-12T13:39:54Z2024-02-12T13:39:54ZEarly polls can offer some insight into candidates’ weak points – but are extremely imprecise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573882/original/file-20240206-22-en56gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters cast their ballots in the race for governor in Kentucky on Nov. 7, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voters-attend-to-cast-their-ballots-at-the-shelby-news-photo/1768065950?adppopup=true">Michael Swensen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Preelection polls have been inescapable early in the 2024 election year, setting storylines, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/often-in-error-but-still-seductive-why-we-cant-quit-election-polls-213835">they invariably do</a>, for journalists and pundits about the race for the presidency.</p>
<p>At the same time, the polls have delivered reminders that they can be less than precise indicators of outcomes — as was evident in January’s Republican caucus in Iowa and primary in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>In those contests, former President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2024/iowa-caucus">slightly underperformed</a> his estimated polling numbers, while rivals Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in New Hampshire <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2024/new-hampshire">outperformed poll-based expectations</a>. </p>
<p>Although Trump won both states handily, the outcomes signaled anew that polls, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/23/polling-bad-for-you-accuracy-ubiquity/">however ubiquitous</a>, are best treated warily. That’s a point I emphasize in the soon-to-be-released, updated edition of “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520397781/lost-in-a-gallup">Lost in a Gallup</a>,” my book about polling misfires in U.S. presidential elections. </p>
<p>Imprecision in election polling has long been recognized. As <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pioneers-polling/archibald-crossley">Archibald Crossley</a>, a pioneer of modern survey research, pointed out in the early 1970s:</p>
<p>“If election results completely agree with those of a preelection poll, it is a coincidence.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People sit around white tables in an office room and look at large black desktop screens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573884/original/file-20240206-28-qkbvbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Members of a voting adjudication board review ballots in Phoenix on Nov. 9, 2023, after a midterm election days before in Arizona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-an-adjudication-board-review-ballots-at-the-news-photo/1440414530?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Contradictory polls</h2>
<p>The early-in-2024 polls assessing a presumptive rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden have broadly <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4448796-biden-is-quietly-narrowing-the-race-against-trump-but-challenges-lie-ahead/">signaled a close race</a>, while on occasion presenting whiplash-inducing, contradictory indications. </p>
<p>Whiplash results can stem from differences in how pollsters conduct their surveys and how they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/upshot/the-error-the-polling-world-rarely-talks-about.html">analyze</a> and statistically <a href="https://www-archive.aapor.org/Education-Resources/For-Researchers/Poll-Survey-FAQ/Weighting.aspx">adjust</a> their findings. </p>
<p>A striking example of whiplash effects came recently in surveys released within a day of each other. CNN, in a matchup poll released Feb. 1, 2024, <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24400249/cnn-poll-trump-narrowly-leads-biden-in-general-election-rematch.pdf">estimated</a> that Trump led Biden by 4 percentage points. </p>
<p>The day before, however, a Quinnipiac University <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3889">poll reported</a> that Biden was ahead of Trump by 6 points.</p>
<p>It deserves mention that neither CNN nor Quinnipiac distinguished itself in polling the presidential race four years ago. CNN’s final preelection survey in 2020 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/cnn-poll-national-october/index.html">placed Biden ahead by 12 points</a>; Quinnipiac’s <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/Poll-Release?releaseid=3804">final poll</a> had Biden leading by 11 points. </p>
<p>Such results encouraged <a href="https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/dreaming-of-a-landslide">notions</a> that Biden was headed for a landslide victory. His popular-vote margin in 2020 was 4.5 points, in what overall was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-polls-in-2020-produced-error-of-unusual-magnitude-expert-panel-finds-without-pinpointing-cause-164759">worst performance by polls</a> since 1980.</p>
<h2>Why pay any attention to polls?</h2>
<p>The gap in the recent CNN and Quinnipiac poll results gives rise to an important question: Why, at such an early moment in the campaign, should voters pay any attention to preelection surveys? </p>
<p>Conventional wisdom, after all, has it that polls conducted many months before votes are cast possess <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-year-out-ignore-general-election-polls/">scant predictive value</a>, given that much can influence the direction and outcome of long-running presidential campaigns.</p>
<p>When considered collectively, however, polls can offer intriguing insights about a developing race, some of which are apparent only in hindsight.</p>
<p>On Feb. 29, 2020 — to choose a random date for purposes of illustration — the average of poll results compiled by the RealClearPolitics website <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden">showed</a> Biden leading Trump by 5.4 percentage points. That spread deviated by less than a percentage point from Biden’s winning margin in November 2020.</p>
<p>At the end of February four years earlier, the RealClearPolitics polling average <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton">indicated</a> that Hillary Clinton was leading Trump by 2.8 points. She won the popular vote by 2.1 points, while losing decisively in the Electoral College.</p>
<p>On Feb. 29, 2012, <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2012/obama-vs-romney">Barack Obama led</a> Republican contender Mitt Romney by 4 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. Obama was reelected that year by 3.9 points.</p>
<p>It’s not as if Leap Day is some sort of magical moment of polling prophesy, however. Obama <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html">was ahead</a> of Republican rival John McCain by 4.3 percentage points on Feb. 29, 2008, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Obama defeated McCain by 7.3 points in the November election. </p>
<p>So it’s prudent not to over-interpret survey results reported early in the campaign, however accurate they may prove to be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Multiple TV screens in a dark room show Trump and Biden facing each other, with the words 'Trump and Biden, the main event' on the screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573885/original/file-20240206-22-zel2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Television screens air the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in September 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/television-screens-airing-the-first-presidential-debate-are-news-photo/1228796150?adppopup=true">Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Will the polls get it right in 2024?</h2>
<p>Polls conducted months before an election can be valuable in identifying trends in voter preferences, and in sending signals about where trouble lurks — as they have for Biden in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html">key battleground states</a>, where the Electoral College may be decided in 2024. </p>
<p>According to polling conducted last month for Bloomberg media, Biden <a href="https://pro-assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2024/01/2401055_Bloomberg_2024-Election-Tracking-Wave-4_Crosstabs_All-States-compressed-1.pdf">trailed</a> Trump in states that typically are competitive, such as Arizona and Georgia, and was tied in Wisconsin. </p>
<p>Outcomes in those and other swing states in November could determine who wins the presidency — much as they did in 2020. Biden carried Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, but a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency">well-distributed shift of 43,000 votes</a> would have given Trump victory in those states, producing a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. </p>
<p>The election was that close.</p>
<p>It’s certainly “a live issue” whether the polls will get it right in 2024, as an academic <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2330443X.2023.2199809">journal article</a> noted not long ago.</p>
<p>The pressure is on pollsters to avoid a recurrence of the misfire in 2020, when overall they understated Trump’s support. To that end, many of them have tweaked or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/10/politics/cnn-polling-new-methodology/index.html">altered</a> their methodologies following the 2020 <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-embarrassing-failure-for-election-pollsters-149499">polling embarrassment</a>.</p>
<p>As I write in “<a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780520397781">Lost in a Gallup</a>,” discrepancies between polling results and presidential election outcomes can have unsettling effects. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/we-still-dont-know-much-about-this-election--except-that-the-media-and-pollsters-blew-it-again/2020/11/04/40c0d416-1e4a-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html">Frustration</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/polling-industry-blows-it-again-434591">dismay</a> and <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/11/16/pollsters-got-it-wrong-2018-2020-elections-statistical-sophistry-accuracy-sonnenfeld-tian/">cynicism</a> about polling have all accompanied notable <a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">failures</a> in taking the measure of the most-watched of all U.S. political campaigns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Imprecision in election polling has long been recognized. But advance polls are still useful in recognizing trends in voter preferences, and candidates’ weak points.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Communication, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178312023-11-17T17:18:18Z2023-11-17T17:18:18ZBiden’s low approval ratings don’t mean he is bound to lose the 2024 US election – here’s why<p>US Democrats have been spooked by some recent polling which suggests that voters intend to pick Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in some key states in the 2024 presidential election.</p>
<p>A CNN poll <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/">reported on the website Real Clear Politics</a> on November 8 put current US president Biden on 45% and Trump on 49% in such a contest. This lead of 4% is statistically significant, which means that it cannot be attributed to errors which can occur with all polls but represents a genuine lead of the former president over the current incumbent.</p>
<p>This has prompted <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/07/david-axelrod-joe-biden-2024-campaign-comments-00125784">David Axelrod</a>, an advisor to former president Barack Obama who has been credited with running the latter’s successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012, to tweet: “If he (Biden) continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in his best interest or the country’s?” This illustrates the nervousness among some Democrats about the upcoming presidential election, due to take place on Tuesday November 5 2024.</p>
<p>However, another indicator may suggest there is still strong backing for the Democrats. There have been some notable <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67353115">electoral successes</a> for the party in recent elections for governors in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky in November 2023. Winning all of these states would be important for the Biden campaign. Abortion was a top issue in all three states, with voters in Ohio also backing a change to the state constitution designed to protect abortion rights, a big Democratic issue.</p>
<p>One concern about Biden is his age (81 on November 20), but also his poor job approval ratings from the American public relating to his work as president. His average approval ratings reported by <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html">Real Clear Politics</a> calculated from several different polls is currently 41%. By contrast, an average of 56% of respondents in these polls disapproved of his performance.</p>
<p>That said, we should be cautious about the accuracy of polls in this case. There are questions about the value of presidential approval ratings as a guide to the subsequent performance a year in advance of the election. The chart, below, shows the relationship between presidential approval ratings in November of the year prior to elections, and the Republican share of delegates in the electoral college in these elections. It covers the 19 presidential elections since 1948.</p>
<p>The focus is on delegates in the US electoral college, rather than the percentage vote shares in the contest, since the former decide the outcome of presidential elections, not the latter. The <a href="https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=mathcs-faculty-publications">electoral college</a> was put in place by the “founding fathers” of the US constitution to act as a buffer between voters and the presidency. They were concerned that a demagogue might capture the presidency if the voters got carried away by a particular candidate. The electoral college was thought to be a protection from this happening, and the number of votes each state receives is based on population size. So states with a smaller population receive fewer votes. </p>
<p>Hilary Clinton won <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-election-2024-beware-polling-predictions-as-they-can-be-wrong-but-heres-an-approach-which-has-often-been-on-the-money-211944">the popular vote</a> in the 2016 election but lost the contest in the electoral college. Given this, it is questionable as to how successful the institution has has been in practice. But we do need to focus on the college results.</p>
<p>This analysis uses approval ratings for the Republican candidate when that party is in power, and the Democrat when they are in office. This captures the impact of performance of the incumbent on the subsequent presidential election for both parties, although in the chart we are focusing on the Republicans.</p>
<p>The chart shows that there is a rather weak relationship between job approval and electoral college votes a year later for Republican incumbents. The largest discrepancy between the two was in 1972 when Richard Nixon had rather modest job approval ratings in 1971 but went on to win a landslide victory against George McGovern, a weak Democrat opponent. A similar thing happened again in 1984 when Ronald Reagan sought a second term and ran a very successful campaign against his Democrat opponent Walter Mondale. </p>
<p><strong>Republican presidential job approval in year prior to the election and subsequent electoral college shares</strong></p>
<p>To be fair, this does not always happen since Democrat Barack Obama beat Republican candidate John McCain for the presidency in 2008 after George W. Bush stepped down at the end of his second term as president. On that occasion Bush’s approval ratings in 2007 were poor and the Republican candidate failed to change this in his campaign.</p>
<p>This means if we look at approval ratings for both Democrat and Republican incumbents a year before the presidential election, they are something of a guide to the outcome a year later. But the relationship is weak and if we use it to try to forecast the outcome, then there is a good chance that the forecast will be wrong.</p>
<p>That said, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that this simple model accurately depicts the relationship and so forecasts the effects correctly. If so, what does it predict? The answer is that Biden’s 41% approval rating now predicts that he could get a 53% vote in the upcoming election. </p>
<p>Therefore, Biden would serve a second term. The president’s ratings may be poor, but if this model is accurate, he is still going to win the election. So, it is not a good idea to get too excited about polling results a year ahead of the election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. </span></em></p>The US president’s ratings may be poor, but historical data and and analysis suggests, he could still win the election.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138352023-10-06T12:31:06Z2023-10-06T12:31:06ZOften in error but still seductive: Why we can’t quit election polls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552158/original/file-20231004-24-qh8x64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C0%2C5910%2C3071&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Polls showed Joe Biden, right, holding double-digit leads over Donald Trump, left, in the run-up to the 2020 election, but he won election by only 4.5 percentage points.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020TrumpBidenDebate/775bdcaa25584fc784badbc3b85f5b51/photo?Query=(persons.person_featured:%22Joe%20Biden%22)%20AND%20(persons.person_featured:%22Donald%20Trump%22)%20AND%20%20(Trump%20Biden)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Their record is <a href="https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/election-polls-are-95-confident-but-only-60-accurate-berkeley-haas-study-finds/">uneven</a>. They misfired in one way or another in the past three presidential elections. And yet the prevalence of election polls is undiminished. Many months before the 2024 election, polls are many – and inescapable.</p>
<p>Why is that? What explains polling’s abiding appeal despite its performance record?</p>
<p>The reasons go beyond facile analogies that election polls are akin to weather forecasts in offering a fluid, if <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4220759-washington-post-says-poll-showing-trump-beating-biden-likely-an-outlier/">sometimes contradictory</a>, sense of what lies ahead.</p>
<p>Polls and poll-based forecasts are not always in error, as I noted in my 2020 book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>.” Their enduring appeal rests in part in offering a sense of data-based certainty that can be irresistible, especially to journalists who tend to value precision in a field awash with ambiguity. </p>
<p>It is hardly surprising, then, that news organizations also are polling operations. Ties to election polling live deep in the media’s DNA. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Candidates Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey in a cartoon featuring predictions of Dewey's win." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362809/original/file-20201011-13-c5wala.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cartoon published two weeks before the 1948 election, in which Dewey was expected to win the presidency by a wide margin – but didn’t.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/306150">Clifford Kennedy Berryman, Artist/National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate, 1789 - 2015</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A deep affinity for polls</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Literary-Digest">Literary Digest</a>, an American news magazine published weekly from 1890 to 1938, conducted massive mail-in polls early in the 20th century and built what was widely called an “uncanny” record for predicting presidential elections accurately – until it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/269085">failed utterly in 1936</a>. </p>
<p>The magazine’s poll that year was based on returns of more than 2.3 million postcard ballots and estimated an easy victory for Republican Alf Landon over incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat. </p>
<p>The Literary Digest <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41407095">miscalled</a> the election by nearly 20 percentage points. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/61180650de91bba046babcd198c0449f">Landon won just two states</a> in one of the most lopsided presidential elections in American history. </p>
<p>Within two years, the Literary Digest was <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,882981,00.html">absorbed</a> by Time magazine.</p>
<p>Major news organizations these days figure prominently in election surveying. CNN, The Economist, Fox News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Yahoo News – among others – all conduct or commission preelection polls. Results of media-sponsored polls are shared with the built-in large audiences of the respective news outlets, exerting what <a href="https://carsey.unh.edu/person/david-moore">polling expert David Moore</a> has <a href="https://www.imediaethics.org/the-2020-election-polls-were-even-worse-than-it-appears/">called</a> “a major influence” on public perceptions of an election.</p>
<p>Indeed, media polls – notably <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/cnn-poll-national-october/index.html">CNN’s</a> and the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/biden-leads-trump-10-points-final-pre-election-nbc-news-n1245667">final preelection survey</a> conducted jointly for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal – showed Joe Biden holding double-digit leads over Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2020 election, encouraging <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/520692-the-memo-biden-landslide-creeps-into-view/">expectations of a landslide</a>. But the outcome was no rout. Biden won the election by 4.5 percentage points.</p>
<h2>Forgetting history</h2>
<p>Another reason why election polls endure is that memories among both the public and pollsters about past failures tend to be fleeting. </p>
<p>By nature, opinion research and journalism are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/03/21/looking-ahead-to-2050-americans-are-pessimistic-about-many-aspects-of-life-in-u-s/">forward-looking</a> pursuits. Their practitioners tend not to dwell on, or often recall, how <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-polls-in-2020-produced-error-of-unusual-magnitude-expert-panel-finds-without-pinpointing-cause-164759">poorly election polls fared</a> in 2020, for example, by collectively overstating Biden’s prospects of victory.</p>
<p>Recollections have likewise dimmed about how polls in key states in 2016 mostly failed to detect decisive, late-campaign <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/where-the-polls-got-it-wrong/">shifts</a> in Trump’s favor. Or how in 2012 the venerable Gallup Poll <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/06/04/gallup-explains-what-went-wrong-in-2012/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.9d5f7b33f219">erred</a> in consistently giving Mitt Romney the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/158519/romney-obama-gallup-final-election-survey.aspx">advantage</a> in preelection matchups with President Barack Obama. </p>
<p>Memories, inevitably, are even dimmer about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">polling failures</a> of 1936, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/18/us/50-years-later-pollsters-analyze-their-big-defeat.html">1948</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1952/11/03/archives/election-outcome-highly-uncertain-survey-indicates-vote-in-many.html">1952</a> and <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal80-860-25879-1173496">1980</a>.</p>
<p>Failure notwithstanding, polls long ago became central features of the theater of American politics. Their results help sharpen and give dimension to the competitive drama of national elections. A tightening race or a building landslide can be at least mildly suspenseful and diverting.</p>
<p>Polls command attention because they “give the public and the candidates some inkling of the electorate’s thinking,” as media critic Jack Shafer has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/09/journalism-polls-reporting-politics-520427">noted</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, polls have become useful both to Democrats and Republicans in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/us/politics/2020-democratic-debates.html">winnowing</a> bloated fields of presidential candidates, most of whom have no chance of being nominated. Both parties in recent years have <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4218852-rnc-raises-threshold-to-qualify-for-third-gop-debate/">imposed thresholds of polling support</a> for candidates to qualify for party-sponsored debates early in the cycle.</p>
<p>The 2024 presidential election campaign has offered a historically unusual reason to pay attention to the polls, even ones this early.</p>
<p>Not since 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican Party in a failed attempt to return to the White House <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1912">four years after he had left the office</a>, has a former president campaigned to reclaim the office. Trump’s candidacy for reelection no doubt has encouraged closer than customary attention to the polls, especially as they have indicated he <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/2024_republican_presidential_nomination-7548.html">maintains enormous leads</a> over rivals for the Republican nomination. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A presidential poll on a double postcard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=195&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552162/original/file-20231004-19-tstfca.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Literary Digest, an American general interest magazine, conducted massive mail-in polls early in the 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/275751060973">Screenshot, eBay</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What else is there?</h2>
<p>Significantly, election polling benefits from a what-else-is-there attitude among journalists, opinion researchers, historians of public polling and politicians that <a href="https://sippey.medium.com/nate-cohn-on-polling-30a9c2c3d65b">no other reasonably accurate options</a> exist in sampling the public’s views and attitudes. </p>
<p>Extensive interviewing by political journalists, an earnest technique called “<a href="https://pressthink.org/2015/04/good-old-fashioned-shoe-leather-reporting/">shoe-leather</a>” reporting, occasionally has been tried by news organizations seeking an alternative to reliance on polls. But such experiments have produced little success. </p>
<p>A notable advocate of shoe-leather journalism was Haynes Johnson, a political reporter for The Washington Post who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/business/media/haynes-johnson-journalist-and-author-dies-at-81.html">died in 2013</a>. Johnson was a poll-basher, asserting that they represent “no substitute for hard reporting” and <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?16899-1/sleepwalking-history">bluntly acknowledging</a>, “I hate the polls.”</p>
<p>In the weeks before the 1980 election, when President Jimmy Carter sought a second term, Johnson wrote lengthy preelection articles based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/09/21/a-small-southern-town-looking-for-a-president-to-believe-in/c7d36f8b-6c0a-4313-985a-a72b6e51ee92/">many hours of interviews</a> with Americans in places as diverse as Boston, San Diego and Youngstown, Ohio. As the campaign neared its end, Johnson was asked on the PBS <a href="https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=john&p=704&item=T:11452">program</a> “Washington Week in Review” who was positioned to win. “I think somehow that Carter is going to slip through” and be reelected, he replied.</p>
<p>A few days later, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/1980">Carter lost</a> to Ronald Reagan in a landslide. </p>
<p>So, if you want clues to what the electorate is thinking in an election campaign – and almost everyone seems interested in such knowledge, from voters, journalists and pundits to donors, campaign workers and candidates – “shoe-leather” journalism won’t cut it. Counting candidates’ <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/polls-arent-perfect-but-nor-are-subjective-indicators.html">yard signs</a> won’t cut it, either. Estimating <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/donald-trump-continues-to-draw-yuge-crowds-that-matters-less-than-he-thinks/">crowd size </a> at campaign rallies is seldom <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a7121/the-curious-science-of-counting-a-crowd/">very revealing</a>. Odds produced by <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/betting-markets-now-see-a-trump-2024-win-as-likelier-than-a-biden-victory-and-give-newsom-better-chances-than-trumps-gop-rivals-96392f4b">betting markets</a> may be intriguing but aren’t consistently reliable. </p>
<p>For want of a better alternative, society is stuck with sample surveys, a popular, familiar, but often-fallible way of estimating outcomes in high-stakes elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The unusual candidacy of former President Donald Trump has made election polling especially appealing, more than a year from the election. But consumers beware: Those polls may be wrong.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1927002022-10-24T12:26:58Z2022-10-24T12:26:58ZWith memories of embarrassments still fresh, election pollsters face big tests in 2022 midterm elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491085/original/file-20221021-25-d8dvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C17%2C5982%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Maine's 2020 Senate race, not one poll showed the GOP incumbent, Susan Collins, in the lead. But she trounced her Democratic challenger by 9 points.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020SenateCollins/4302c0740b4541308ff14ebe8a102b81/photo?Query=susan%20collins%20sara%20gideon&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=81&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it became clear his poll had erred in the 2021 New Jersey governor’s race, Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, acknowledged:</p>
<p>“I blew it.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_nj_102721/">campaign’s final Monmouth poll</a> estimated Gov. Phil Murphy’s lead over Republican foe Jack Ciattarelli at 11 percentage points – a margin that “did not provide an accurate picture of the state of the governor’s race,” Murray later said in a newspaper commentary. Murphy won by 3.2 points.</p>
<p>It was a refreshingly candid acknowledgment by an election pollster.</p>
<p>More broadly, the error was <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-embarrassing-failure-for-election-pollsters-149499">one of several in the recent past</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/26/pollsters-fear-elections-2024-00058506">looms among the disquieting</a> omens confronting pollsters in the 2022 midterm elections. Will they be embarrassed again? Will their polls in high-profile U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races produce misleading indications of election outcomes? </p>
<p>Such questions are hardly far-fetched or irrelevant, given election polling’s tattered recent record. A few prominent survey organizations in recent years <a href="https://time.com/4067019/gallup-horse-race-polling/">have given up on election polling</a>, with no signs of returning. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A shocked looking woman in a crowd, with her hand over her mouth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491086/original/file-20221021-26-8taa0g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worried supporters of Democratic incumbent New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy at an election night event in 2021. Murphy, who one state poll estimated was leading his GOP challenger by 11 percentage points, won by 3.2 points.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-react-as-new-jersey-governor-phil-murphy-speaks-news-photo/1236310210?phrase=election%20Phil%20Murphy&adppopup=true">Mark Makela/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Treat polls warily</h2>
<p>It is important to keep in mind that polls are not always in error, a point noted in my 2020 book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>.” But polls have been wrong often enough over the years that they deserve to be treated warily and with skepticism.</p>
<p>For a reminder, one need look no further than New Jersey in 2021 or, more expansively, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020-poll-errors/2021/07/18/8d6a9838-e7df-11eb-ba5d-55d3b5ffcaf1_story.html">to the 2020 presidential election</a>. The polls pointed to Democrat Joe Biden’s winning the presidency but underestimated popular support for President Donald Trump by nearly 4 percentage points overall. </p>
<p>That made for polling’s worst collective performance in a presidential campaign in 40 years, and post-election analyses were <a href="https://theconversation.com/survey-experts-have-yet-to-figure-out-what-caused-the-most-significant-polling-error-in-40-years-in-trump-biden-race-160967">at a loss to explain</a> the misfire. One theory was that Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/us/politics/trump-polls.html">hostility</a> to election surveys dissuaded supporters from answering pollsters’ questions.</p>
<p>In any case, polling troubles in 2020 were not confined to the presidential race: In several Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, polls also overstated support for Democratic candidates. Among the notable flubs was the U.S. Senate race in <a href="https://www.bangordailynews.com/2020/11/05/politics/susan-collins-defied-the-polls-heres-what-they-may-have-gotten-wrong/">Maine</a>, where polls signaled defeat for the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/me/maine_senate_collins_vs_gideon-6928.html">Not one survey</a> in the weeks before the election placed Collins in the lead. </p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/12/22/the-political-survival-of-susan-collins/">won reelection</a> by nearly 9 points.</p>
<h2>Recalling the shock of 2016</h2>
<p>The embarrassing outcomes of 2020 followed a stunning failure in 2016, when off-target polls in key Great Lakes states <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/upshot/a-2016-review-why-key-state-polls-were-wrong-about-trump.html">confounded expectations of Hillary Clinton’s election to the presidency</a>. They largely failed to detect late-campaign shifts in support to Trump, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/AP-explains-elections-popular-vote-743f5cb6c70fce9489c9926a907855eb">who won a clear Electoral College victory despite losing</a> the national popular vote.</p>
<p>Past performance is not always prologue in election surveys; polling failures are seldom alike. Even so, qualms about a misfire akin to those of the recent past have emerged during this campaign. </p>
<p>In September 2022, Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The New York Times, cited the possibility of misleading polls in key races, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/12/upshot/polling-midterms-warning.html">writing</a> that “the warning sign is flashing again: Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Mr. Biden in 2020 and Mrs. Clinton in 2016.”</p>
<p>There has been some shifting in Senate polls since then, and surely there will be more before Nov. 8. In Wisconsin, for example, recent surveys suggest Republican incumbent Ron Johnson has opened a lead over Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes. Johnson’s advantage was <a href="https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2022/10/12/new-marquette-law-school-poll-survey-of-wisconsin-voters-finds-johnson-leading-barnes-in-senate-race-evers-and-michels-in-a-gubernatorial-toss-up/">estimated</a> at 6 percentage points not long ago in a Marquette Law School Poll.</p>
<p>The spotlight on polling this election season is unsurprising, given that key <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/15/senate-swing-state-polls-midterms-00061877">Senate races</a> – including those featuring flawed candidates in Pennsylvania and <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-will-happen-in-georgia/ar-AA12Hpro">Georgia</a> – will determine partisan control of the upper house of Congress.</p>
<h2>Worth doing?</h2>
<p>Polling is neither easy nor cheap if done well, and the field’s persistent troubles have even prompted the question whether election surveys are worth the bother.</p>
<p>Monmouth’s Murray spoke to that sentiment, <a href="https://www.nj.com/opinion/2021/11/pollster-i-blew-it-maybe-its-time-to-get-rid-of-election-polls-opinion.html">stating</a>: “If we cannot be certain that these polling misses are anomalies then we have a responsibility to consider whether releasing horse race numbers in close proximity to an election is making a positive or negative contribution to the political discourse.”</p>
<p>He noted that prominent survey organizations such as Pew Research and Gallup <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/gallup-poll-2016-pollsters-214493">quit</a> election polls several years ago to focus on issue-oriented survey research. “Perhaps,” Murray wrote, “that is a wise move.”</p>
<p>Questions about the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/09/why-horse-race-political-journalism-awesome-223867/">value</a> of election polling run through the history of survey research and never have been fully settled. Early pollsters such as George Gallup and Elmo Roper were at odds about such matters. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759709376412">Gallup used to argue</a> that election polls were acid tests, proxies for measuring the effectiveness of surveys of all types. <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300965/lost-in-a-gallup">Roper equated election polling to stunts</a> like “tearing a telephone book in two” – impressive, but not all that consequential. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a story in the New York Times about polling mistakes in the US 2016 presidential election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491088/original/file-20221021-21-vfyg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pollsters in 2016 predicted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would win some states that she actually lost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/upshot/a-2016-review-why-key-state-polls-were-wrong-about-trump.html">Screenshot, New York Times</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who is and isn’t responding</h2>
<p>Experimentation, meanwhile, has swept the field, as contemporary pollsters seek new ways of reaching participants and gathering data. </p>
<p>Placing calls to landlines and cellphones – once polling’s <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/methodology/">gold standard methodology</a> – is expensive and not always effective, as completion rates in such polls tend to hover in the low single digits. Many people ignore calls from numbers they do not recognize, or decline to participate when they do answer.</p>
<p>Some polling organizations have adopted a blend of survey techniques, an approach known as “methodological diversity.” CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/10/politics/cnn-polling-new-methodology/index.html">announced</a> in 2021, for example, that it would include online interviews with phone-based samples in polls that it commissions. A blended approach, the cable network said, should allow “the researchers behind the CNN poll to have a better understanding of who is and who is not responding.”</p>
<p>During an <a href="https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K012121/">online discussion last year</a>, Scott <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_21-04-06_pollingqa_keeterheadshot/">Keeter</a> of Pew Research said “methodological diversity is absolutely critical” for pollsters at a time when “cooperation is going down [and] distrust of institutions is going up. We need to figure out lots of ways to get at our subjects and to gather information from them.”</p>
<p>So what lies immediately ahead for election polling and the 2022 midterms? </p>
<p>Some polls of prominent races may well misfire. Such errors could even be eye-catching. </p>
<p>But will the news media continue to report frequently on polls in election cycles ahead? </p>
<p>Undoubtedly.</p>
<p>After all, leading media outlets, both national and regional, have been survey contributors for years, conducting or commissioning – and publicizing – election polls of their own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will some polls misfire in prominent races in the 2022 midterms? Probably. Will such errors be eye-catching? In some cases, perhaps. Will the news media continue to tout polls? Undoubtedly.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810672022-04-20T19:55:59Z2022-04-20T19:55:59ZDon’t bring COVID home on election day. Plan your vote to stay safe<p><em>Update: this article was updated to reflect changes to telephone voting eligibility.</em> </p>
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<p>Given what’s happening in some places in the world right now, we should take a moment to appreciate how lucky we are to live in a peaceful democracy. We all have a vote and a say in who should lead our country. </p>
<p>But just as we take our democracy for granted, we don’t often stop to appreciate the logistical challenges involved in conducting an election. Holding fair elections is one of the biggest and most complex logistical undertakings that occur in democracies around the world. And this already challenging responsibility has become <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/aec-gearing-up-for-covid-safe-election/13835584">a lot more difficult</a> given we’re in the middle of a pandemic. At least 80 countries and territories around the world have <a href="https://www.idea.int/news-media/multimedia-reports/global-overview-covid-19-impact-elections">postponed elections</a> due to COVID since February 2020. </p>
<p>In compelling Australian adults to vote, we’re asking people to do things we have discouraged over the past two years. That is, leave their houses and come together in large numbers in a few selected locations. Looking at this through a narrow health lens, this appears to fly in the face of good sense.</p>
<p>However, the risks COVID poses to the community are lower now than at any time since 2020. So while this is not the time for complacency, casting your vote in 2022 doesn’t have to be a scary proposition.</p>
<p>The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/election/covid19-safety-measures.htm">doing what it can</a> to make voting as safe as possible. However, from a personal perspective, there are also things you can do to reduce your risks when you exercise your democratic duty to vote.</p>
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<h2>Vax the vote and mask up</h2>
<p>First, while it’s important to highlight that no one is going to be excluded from attending voting centres on the basis of vaccination status, the best thing you can do to protect yourself and others as you cast your vote is to be fully vaccinated. </p>
<p>Should you be exposed to someone who is infected, this will <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/about-rollout">reduce your chances</a> of getting ill, getting severe disease, and spreading disease to others. If you haven’t already made sure you’re up-to-date with your COVID vaccinations, now is the perfect time to do this to ensure you have something close to optimal immunity come May 21.</p>
<p>Wearing a mask is also <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent">an effective way</a> to reduce your risk of being infected and spreading COVID. Attending a polling booth on election day might mean coming into contact with a large number of people you don’t know in an uncontrolled situation where you may not always be able to socially distance. And you’re likely to be indoors at some stage. In this situation, wearing the best mask you can get your hands on is a sensible way to protect yourself and others.</p>
<p>While surfaces don’t pose a major risk, it’s still possible to contract SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, from contaminated surfaces. So resist the urge to bite your democracy pencil, and maintain good hand hygiene when you vote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-mask-mandates-might-be-largely-gone-but-here-are-5-reasons-to-keep-wearing-yours-177824">COVID mask mandates might be largely gone but here are 5 reasons to keep wearing yours</a>
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<h2>Vote early (not often)</h2>
<p>The AEC is doing what it can to provide options for voters, both to ease the crowds on election day and to provide alternatives for those who aren’t able to attend polling booths on the day.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/ways_to_vote/">Pre-poll voting</a> is becoming more popular at each election. This option will be available in the two weeks before election day and means you can avoid the crowds by voting ahead of time. </p>
<p>Less queuing time and less crowded polling booths reduce the likelihood of disease transmission. The only downside is if you’re a swinging voter. A lot can happen in the final two weeks of an election campaign, so voting early can have a different sort of risk!</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/FAQs/postal-voting.htm#eligible">Postal voting</a> is available to people who know much further out from the election day they won’t be able to visit a polling booth. </p>
<p>The various eligibility criteria for postal voting include having “a reasonable fear for your safety”. One could reasonably consider this to apply if you’re at higher likelihood for severe COVID illness and don’t want to risk voting in person.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-research-says-omicron-lasts-much-longer-on-surfaces-than-other-variants-but-disinfecting-still-works-176156">Fresh research says Omicron lasts much longer on surfaces than other variants – but disinfecting still works</a>
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<h2>Phone it in if necessary</h2>
<p>The big change at this federal election is the availability of <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/election/blv.htm">telephone voting</a>. In early 2022, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1332">legislation</a> was passed to allow for COVID-affected voters to cast their vote by telephone. Telephone voting is available as an emergency measure. </p>
<p>People who tested positive to COVID after 6pm on Friday 13 May are eligible and can <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/election/covid19-affected.htm">register online</a>.</p>
<p>The AEC website gives details of how telephone voting will work. It involves registration then obtaining a personal identification number, followed by a second call to lodge a vote. This will protect voter anonymity. </p>
<p>Telephone voters will need to make a declaration about their need for the service, the electoral commissioner <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/aec-gearing-up-for-covid-safe-election/13835584">has said</a>.</p>
<p>Like many things since 2020, telephone voting is going to be a real-time experiment and it is unclear what the demand for this may be. It’s hoped that if only those who really need this service use it, it will be able to cope with the demand. But this has already proved a significant source of anxiety for the AEC. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-will-soon-be-endemic-this-doesnt-mean-its-harmless-or-we-give-up-just-that-its-part-of-life-175622">COVID will soon be endemic. This doesn't mean it's harmless or we give up, just that it's part of life</a>
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<h2>Weighing your options</h2>
<p>So while there is more to consider this election over and above who you will give your precious vote to, there is no reason to be anxious about voting. Even if you are in a high-risk group for COVID, you have plenty of options as to how you navigate the logistics of casting your vote to limit your exposure to risk.</p>
<p>And even if you wake up with respiratory symptoms or to news of a positive COVID test on May 21, you’ll have the new option of telephone voting to ensure you get a say. Of course, voting by telephone means you will have to cook your own democracy sausage.</p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hassan Vally does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Having most Australian adults gather at polling booths seems like a COVID disaster waiting to happen. What measures are in place and how can you limit your risk?Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1501212020-11-18T13:24:33Z2020-11-18T13:24:33ZElection polls are more accurate if they ask participants how others will vote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369666/original/file-20201116-17-1bjmv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C61%2C5835%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People have information on how they'll vote, but also about how others in their community may vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USElection2020WisconsinMisinformation/52a5b75dca5245b48ebc25f296547302/photo">AP Photo/Wong Maye-E</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most public opinion polls correctly predicted the winning candidate in the 2020 U.S. presidential election – but on average, they overestimated the margin by which Democrat Joe Biden would beat Republican incumbent Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Our research into polling methods has found that pollsters’ predictions can be more accurate if they look beyond traditional questions. Traditional polls ask people whom they would vote for if the election were today, or for the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/78/S1/233/1836783">percent chance</a> that they might vote for particular candidates.</p>
<p>But our research into <a href="https://priceschool.usc.edu/people/wandi-bruine-de-bruin">people’s expectations</a> and <a href="https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/mirta-galesic">social judgments</a> led us and our collaborators, <a href="https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/henrik-olsson">Henrik Olsson</a> at the Santa Fe Institute and <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/faculty/dprelec">Drazen Prelec</a> at MIT, to wonder whether different questions could yield more accurate results.</p>
<p>Specifically, we wanted to know whether asking people about the political preferences of others in their social circles and in their states could help paint a fuller picture of the American electorate. Most people know <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000096">quite a bit about the life experiences of their friends and family</a>, including how happy and healthy they are and roughly how much money they make. So we designed poll questions to see whether this knowledge of others extended to politics – and we have found that it does.</p>
<p>Pollsters, we determined, could learn more if they took advantage of this type of knowledge. Asking people how others around them are going to vote and aggregating their responses across a large national sample enables pollsters to tap into what is often called “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/175380/the-wisdom-of-crowds-by-james-surowiecki/">the wisdom of crowds</a>.”</p>
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<h2>What are the new ‘wisdom-of-crowds’ questions?</h2>
<p>Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election season, we have been asking participants in a variety of election polls: “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0302-y">What percentage of your social contacts will vote for each candidate?</a>” </p>
<p>In the 2016 U.S. election, this question predicted that Trump would win, and did so more accurately than questions asking about poll respondents’ own voting intentions. </p>
<p>The question about participants’ social contacts was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9WSmM8VeQ0">similarly more accurate</a> than the traditional question at predicting the results of the 2017 French presidential election, the 2017 Dutch parliamentary election, the 2018 Swedish parliamentary election and the 2018 U.S. election for House of Representatives.</p>
<p>In some of these polls, we also asked, “What percentage of people in your state will vote for each candidate?” This question also taps into participants’ knowledge of those around them, but in a wider circle. Variations of this question have worked well <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/78/S1/204/1836551">in previous elections</a>.</p>
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<h2>How well did the new polling questions do?</h2>
<p>In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, our “wisdom-of-crowds” questions were once again better at predicting the outcome of the national popular vote than the traditional questions. In the <a href="https://election.usc.edu">USC Dornsife Daybreak Poll</a> we asked more than 4,000 participants how they expected their social contacts to vote and which candidate they thought would win in their state. They were also asked how they themselves were planning to vote. </p>
<p>The current election results show a <a href="https://cookpolitical.com/2020-national-popular-vote-tracker">Biden lead of 3.7 percentage points</a> in the popular vote. <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">An average of national polls</a> predicted a lead of 8.4 percentage points. In comparison, the question about social contacts <a href="https://osf.io/j54rz">predicted a 3.4-point Biden lead</a>. The state-winner question predicted Biden leading by 1.5 points. By contrast, the traditional question that asked about voters’ own intentions in the same poll predicted a 9.3-point lead. </p>
<h2>Why do the new polling questions work?</h2>
<p>We think there are three reasons that asking poll participants about others in their social circles and their state ends up being more accurate than asking about the participants themselves.</p>
<p>First, asking people about others effectively increases the sample size of the poll. It gives pollsters at least some information about the voting intentions of people whose data might otherwise have been entirely left out. For instance, many were not contacted by the pollsters, or may have declined to participate. Even though the poll respondents don’t have perfect information about everyone around them, it turns out they do know enough to give useful answers. </p>
<p>Second, we suspect people may find it easier to report about how they think others might vote than it is <a href="https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/could-shy-trump-voters-discomfort-with-disclosing-candidate-choice-skew-telephone-polls-evidence-from-the-usc-election-poll/">to admit how they themselves will vote</a>. Some people may feel embarrassed to admit who their favorite candidate is. Others may fear harassment. And some might lie because they want to obstruct pollsters. Our own findings suggest that Trump voters might have been more likely than Biden voters to hide their voting intentions, for all of those reasons. </p>
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<p>Third, most people are influenced by others around them. People often get information about political issues from friends and family – and those conversations <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-98606-000">may influence their voting choices</a>. Poll questions that ask participants how they will vote do not capture that social influence. But by asking participants how they think others around them will vote, pollsters may get some idea of which participants might still change their minds. </p>
<h2>Other methods we are investigating</h2>
<p>Building on these findings, we are looking at ways to <a href="https://osf.io/zv726">integrate information from these and other questions</a> into algorithms that might make even better predictions of election outcomes. </p>
<p>One algorithm, called the “<a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5695/462">Bayesian Truth Serum</a>,” gives more weight to the answers of participants who say their voting intentions, and those of their social circles, are relatively more prevalent than people in that state think. Another algorithm, called a “<a href="https://osf.io/gp96y/">full information forecast</a>,” combines participants’ answers across several poll questions to incorporate information from each of them. Both methods largely outperformed the traditional polling question and the predictions from an <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">average of polls</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Our poll did not have enough participants in each state to make good state-level forecasts that could help predict votes in the Electoral College. As it was, our questions about social circles and expected state winners predicted that Trump might narrowly win the Electoral College. That was wrong, but so far it appears that these questions had on average lower error than the traditional questions in predicting the difference between Biden and Trump votes across states.</p>
<p>Even though we still don’t know the final vote counts for the 2020 election, we know enough to see that pollsters could improve their predictions by asking participants how they think others will vote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work has been partially supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (MMS 2019982 and DRMS 1949432). The NSF had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, or preparation of reports. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wändi Bruine de Bruin additionally receives funding from the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Swedish foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences). She is affiliated with the University of Southern California's Center for Economic and Social Research, which conducted the USC Dornsife 2020 Election Poll.</span></em></p>People know a lot about their friends and neighbors – and pollsters can learn from that information, if they ask.Mirta Galesic, Professor of Human Social Dynamics, Santa Fe Institute; External Faculty, Complexity Science Hub Vienna; Associate Researcher, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, University of PotsdamWändi Bruine de Bruin, Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioral Science, USC Price School of Public Policy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1492262020-11-04T05:16:41Z2020-11-04T05:16:41ZA Q&A with a historian of presidential polls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367292/original/file-20201103-13-1asuq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C9%2C5984%2C3947&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters wait to cast their ballots Tuesday at Johnston Elementary School in the Wilkinsburg neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voters-wait-to-cast-their-ballots-at-johnston-elementary-news-photo/1229437556?adppopup=true">Jeff Swensen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/epic-miscalls-and-landslides-unforeseen-the-exceptional-catalog-of-polling-failure-146959">Epic miscalls and landslides unforeseen: The exceptional catalog of polling failure</a>” is the headline on one of scholar <a href="https://wjosephcampbell.com/">W. Joseph Campbell</a>’s recent stories for The Conversation. Campbell is an authority on the history of presidential polling, and in that story, as well as his recent book, “<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/california/view/title/592278">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in Presidential Elections</a>,” he details just how polls and pollsters – and those who put their faith in them – have misread public opinion when it comes to elections. With that background, we thought that Campbell was an ideal person to provide readers with a critical perspective on 2020’s election polling. He gave us these thoughts late on election night.</em> </p>
<p><strong>Q: You’ve written an entire book about polling failure in U.S. presidential elections. Are there any pollsters this year whose work was notable? Which ones, and why?</strong> </p>
<p>It is still too early to say, but at least a few individual polling results were so unusual or unexpected that they stood out in the week or so before Election Day. These included <a href="https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1216a52020StateBattlegrounds-MIWI.pdf">a survey in Wisconsin</a> conducted for The Washington Post and ABC News and released Oct. 28, which pegged Joe Biden ahead by 17 percentage points – an eye-popping margin that no other recent poll even came close to matching. This appears to have been what pollsters call an outlier.</p>
<p>Also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/iowa-poll-selzer/index.html">standing out</a> was The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/31/iowa-poll-trump-takes-lead-biden-days-before-election/6109299002/">final results</a> of which were released just days before the election. And they showed President Donald Trump ahead by 7 points in Iowa, which is striking given that the Register’s poll in September indicated the president and Biden were tied. I mention this because the Iowa Poll is highly regarded in the state and beyond.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of The Des Moines Register's story about their poll released just days before the election showing President Donald Trump ahead by 7 points in Iowa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367318/original/file-20201103-19-vy9fpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Des Moines Register poll released just days before the election showed President Donald Trump ahead by 7 points in Iowa – very different from the Register’s September poll indicating the president and Biden were tied.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2020/10/31/election-2020-iowa-poll-president-donald-trump-leads-joe-biden/6061937002/">Screenshot, Des Moines Register</a></span>
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<p>Another survey result that stirred considerable comment among pundits and some news organizations was a Gallup poll of registered voters that found 56% of Americans said they were <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/more-voters-better-off-donald-trump-first-term-obama-bush-1537759">better off now</a> than they were four years ago. It’s the highest such percentage Gallup has recorded since first posing the question in 1984. </p>
<p>Given the economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to believe that such a large percentage of Americans feel better off compared with four years ago. But maybe they remember how vigorous the economy was until the shutdowns. If that’s the case, the Gallup reading may be an encouraging indicator for Trump.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Where do we stand with exit polling this year? Have early voting and mail-in voting made exit polling a relic of elections past? And can we trust exit polls in any case?</strong></p>
<p>Exit polling <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/02/politics/exit-polls-2020-pandemic/index.html">has been done</a> this year for a consortium of television networks known as the National Election Pool. But it comes with a twist. Given the popularity of early voting and voting by mail, the polling firm that conducts the consortium’s exit polling, <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/election-polling/">Edison Research</a>, has been interviewing voters at early-voting locations and reaching mail-in voters by phone. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Kerry and running mate John Edwards before Kerry gave concession speech in 2004." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367319/original/file-20201103-17-1f0rn9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Exit polls have proved to be misleading in presidential elections, notably in 2004 when they indicated John Kerry was clearly ahead of President George W. Bush. Here, Kerry is about to give his concession speech after being introduced by his running mate, John Edwards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-john-kerry-is-introduced-by-running-mate-john-edwards-news-photo/181166060?adppopup=true">Bill Greene/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Edison Research also conducted traditional exit polling on Election Day by surveying randomly selected voters as they left voting locations in key precincts around the country.</p>
<p>It is important to keep in mind that exit polls have proved to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/upshot/exit-polls-why-they-so-often-mislead.html">misleading</a> in presidential elections, notably in 2004 when they indicated John Kerry was clearly ahead of President George W. Bush – enough so that a senior aide referred to Kerry on election night as “Mr. President.” </p>
<p>Some critics say exit polling <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/exit-polls-can-be-misleading-especially-this-year/">could be even less reliable</a> this year, given disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p><strong>Q: What historical precursors are there for what we’re seeing election night? Does this election remind you of any other in modern times?</strong></p>
<p>Although no two presidential elections are quite the same, the final days and hours of this year’s campaign seemed reminiscent of the race four years ago. Even election night has been at least faintly evocative of 2016. Late in the evening, Trump’s <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/swing-states-poll-results-us-election-day-focus">apparent victory in Florida</a> is one example. It was a state crucial to his victory in 2016 and it is vital to his reelection chances. </p>
<p>But Biden may well win the popular vote nationally, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. On Tuesday morning, Biden had a lead of 7.2 percentage points in national polls, as aggregated by RealClearPolitics.com.</p>
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<p>Overall, the election likely will be decided by electoral votes in several closely contested states – much as it was four years ago.</p>
<p>The closely watched states this year include Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which were battlegrounds in 2016. </p>
<p>A surprise of election night 2020 was the unexpectedly tight race in Virginia, which pollsters and pundits regarded as <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Virginia.html">very safe</a> for Biden. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-voting-elections-virginia-3f75551ada7b2c55e9c053043d2ce01f">A number of news outlets called Virginia for Biden early in the evening</a>, but Trump had maintained a lead in the state well into the night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149226/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert on the history of polling has a first take on how pollsters did this year.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.