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Political Polling: Emily Swanson, Associated Press Ruth Igielnik, Pew Research
Political Polling: Emily Swanson, Associated Press Ruth Igielnik, Pew Research
Political Polling: Emily Swanson, Associated Press Ruth Igielnik, Pew Research
• How important to you is producing more oil and natural gas here at home?
• How important is energy when it comes to the issues the federal government should be
focusing on?
• Do you think the federal government does enough to encourage the development of oil
and natural gas resources right here in the U.S.?
• Please indicate if you agree or disagree:
• Increased production of domestic oil and natural gas could lead to more jobs in the U.S.
• Increased production of domestic oil and natural gas could help stimulate the economy.
• Increased production of domestic oil and natural gas could help strengthen America’s
energy security.
• Producing more domestic oil and natural gas could help lower energy costs for
consumers.
• Producing more domestic oil and natural gas could help strengthen America’s national
security by lessening the negative impacts of political instability occurring in other parts
of the world
• Producing more domestic oil and natural gas could benefit federal and state budgets
through lease payments, royalty fees and other sources of revenue.
How were people contacted to
take part in the poll?
Phone
Online
Mail
In-person
PHONE POLLS
Major considerations:
Is everyone covered?
◦ 52% of American adults don’t have a landline phone at home
◦ They differ from adults overall: 71% of those age 25-34 only have a cell
phone
IVR/”Robopolls”
ONLINE POLLS
Probability based panels: GfK KnowledgePanel, NORC AmeriSpeak
Panel, Pew American Trends Panel
Opt-in panels: ongoing research and debate about ability to be
representative of general population: Major players include
SurveyMonkey, YouGov, Ipsos
Web votes and email/text message campaigns
DIFFERENT ANSWERS ONLINE
vs PHONE
Margin of sampling error
“plus or minus X percentage points”
The fewer people interviewed, the larger the margin of error
◦ Higher for subgroups like men and women, whites and African Americans,
and likely voters
For great long term trends on issues, the General Social Survey (GSS) is
easy and accessible here: http://gss.norc.org/
Question wording matters
Lessons of 2016
What actually happened?
National polls were actually pretty accurate by historical standards!
Source: American Association for Public Opinion Research report on 2016 poll accuracy
But state polls were less accurate, especially in key states Trump ended up winning
Source: American Association for Public Opinion Research report on 2016 poll accuracy
Why?
People changed their minds during the final week, according to exit
polls
Education
Was there a “shy Trump” effect?
Turnout?
Forecasts assigning a win probability may be part of the problem
AAPOR task force report: “There is no consistent partisan favoritism in recent
U.S. polling” – “whether polls tend to miss in the Republican direction or the
Democratic direction is tantamount to a coin flip”
Source: American Association for Public Opinion Research report on 2016 poll accuracy
2018
So what’s going to happen in
2018?
There won’t be polls in every congressional district – even the competitive ones
National polls can give a rough indication of how many seats a party is expected
to win
The “generic ballot”
Measures support for an unnamed Democrat or Republican candidate
for Congress, for example: If the election for the U.S. House of
Representatives were being held today, would you vote for the
Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in your congressional
district?
For Democrats, it’s not enough to be ahead: Forecasters and analysts
estimate they need at least a 6 to 8 point advantage to win a House
majority
Most are now trying to measure likely voters. This can make a big
difference if turnout heavily favors one party!
It’s still early! A sitting president’s party often loses seats, but there’s a
lot of time between now and November
The likely voter challenge
illustrated
Resources
AAPOR online course for journalists: http://www.aapor.org/Education-
Resources/For-Media/Online-Course-for-Journalists.aspx
AAPOR transparency initiative:
http://www.aapor.org/Transparency_Initiative.htm
Roper Center: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/
National Council on Public Polls “20 questions”:
http://www.ncpp.org/?q=node/4
Polling Report pollingreport.com