Politics Polls
Misjudging Democrats’ Strength
ARIZONA SENATOR
DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE KYRSTEN SINEMA
Polls Predicted Loss: -3.0% Actual Election Result:
+1.7% WIN
TEXAS SENATOR
DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE BETO O’ROURKE
Polls Predicted Loss: -10.0% Actual Election Result:
-2.6% LOSS
36 NEWSMAX | JANUARY 2019
had it at 2.3 points for McAdams, who eked out a 0.2 point victory on Election Night.
Of course, there were errant polls in the other direction as well: GOP Rep. Martha McSally was favored to win the Arizona Senate race by 1 to 3 points in most polls, but Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema won by 1.7 per- centage points. In Texas, four polls predicted GOP Sen. Ted Cruz would defeat Democratic chal- lenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke by 3 to 10 points. His actual victory margin was 2.6 percentage points.
R
etired pollster Matt Towery, a conserva-
tive, says producing accu- rate polls “is just getting harder to do.” Schoen tells Newsmax
the polls were “largely accurate,” but concedes Florida was a “glaring issue.” One big challenge for
pollsters: Surveys are find- ing it harder to capture the mood of younger voters, who are apt to be glued to their cellphones. “The average person
heavily on smartphones over landlines tend to skew Democratic. “The cellphone survey is just not work-
ing out,” he says. The issues confronting pollsters are expected to grow as the 2020 presidential election nears. Finding a representative sample will-
ing to stop long enough to take a survey could be even more difficult. Demograph- ics, turnout patterns, hot-button issues, culture, technology — all of it is changing rapidly, and it’s not clear if the polls can keep up. “The sand is shifting too quickly,” he
“We all need to recognize that it’s not working. We need to quit putting emphasis on polls or we need to find a way to fix it”
doesn’t like to answer cell- phone calls that they don’t know where they’re coming from,” Tow- ery tells Newsmax. “If you’re trying to capture younger voters, it’s pretty well known that millennials don’t enjoy hav- ing long conversations on a cellphone.” That’s why some polling organizations
have created “panels” of cellphone voters who agree to be surveyed and are tapped regularly. But when that happens, the risk of a bias in the poll grows. “It’s people who have already indicated
their interest in politics and they want to talk about a particular election. As soon as you do that, you are no longer just polling a random voter,” Towery says. “You’re calling a hyper-sensitive voter.” According to Towery, voters who rely
adds. “It’s hard to keep up with the land- scape and what is taking place.” Tow- ery says polling is “at a crossroads.” “It’s going to be very
difficult to poll the pres- idential race in 2020, almost impossible,” he predicts. “And I’ll prob- ably be more skeptical of the numbers than I was this time.” Over time he sug-
— Retired Pollster Matt Towery
gests the media will either find a way to make their polls more consistently accurate, or could begin to de- emphasize them as pre- dictive instruments. “We all need to recognize that it’s not
working,” Towery says. “We need to quit putting emphasis on polls or we need to find a way to fix it.” Schoen, an adviser to former President
Bill Clinton and ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, describes the fine art of polling as “a work in progress.” “You have more variables involved,
more uncertainty, and more results like Florida,” he says. “Estimating and understanding reality
has become more challenging. It takes more polling, more concern with quality control, more interviews, and more efforts to poll right up to Election Day to get it right. “And even then,” Schoen cautions, “it becomes a great challenge.”
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