ABOUT THIS EPISODE
A veteran pollster points to several factors wrecking polling’s reputation, including overhyped results and a sea of low-quality polls.
Political polling has suffered some embarrassing failures this year.
In Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, polls predicted a blowout for Abdul El-Sayed; he won by less than a percentage point. In Wisconsin, polls showed Democratic SocialistFrancesca Hong enjoying double-digit leads in the gubernatorial primary; she narrowly lost to David Crowley.
In truth, polls have always been unreliable.
Longtime Democratic pollster Stefan Hankin, founder and CEOof Lincoln Park Strategies, explains the myriad of challenges currently facing, including a lack of enforceable professional standards to prevent bad polls from getting press.
Host: Anne Kim, Washington Monthly
Guest: Stefan Hankin, Lincoln Park Strategies
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to polling failures in recent elections
02:12 What makes a good, trustworthy poll?
03:01 Sample size recommendations for state-wide polls
04:09 The difficulty of predicting likely voters
05:47 How pollsters select voter samples
07:36 Response rates and reaching respondents
08:38 Are polls becoming less reliable?
12:02 Lack of enforcement in polling standards
12:56 What went wrong in Michigan and Wisconsin
15:43 Are polls overselling their accuracy?
19:32 Prediction markets versus polls
22:09 How much should we trust polls for November?
24:22 How to responsibly interpret polling data
28:10 The future of polling technology and methods
29:45 The unpredictability of human behavior and polling
