How Campaigns Work: Polling

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an ongoing series congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell looks under the hood at campaigns. From how they raise money to what they do once they have it.

This episode, Kelsey looks at polling. But not the kind you expect. Kelsey talks to two of the top pollsters on both sides of the aisle about who exactly they poll, what they ask them, and how the answers change how a campaign operates.

This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid and congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
0:05.3	I must ma'challet.
0:06.3	I cover the presidential campaign.
0:08.0	And I'm Kelsey Snulley, cover congress.
0:09.8	And Kelsey, you have been working on a series of special episodes that I've been fascinated
0:14.8	by because I think that they really help us understand how political campaigns work.
0:20.0	Last time we talked about political ads and today we're going to talk about something
0:23.3	that has been on a lot of people's minds because we are nearing the point where it will
0:28.3	be the last day to cast your ballot.
0:31.3	And what we're going to talk about today is polling.
0:33.2	Yeah, polls can play a role in everything from where Canada invests all of that money
0:37.6	that they're raising to little things about the way they run their campaigns and where
0:41.4	they talk and ads.
0:42.4	Just, they are so important.
0:44.4	And you know, we're all pretty aware of the kinds of polls that campaigns use to determine
0:48.5	the really basic question of who's up and who's down and how many people out there still
0:52.2	haven't made up their minds.
0:53.9	And Kelsey, those undecided folks are really, it seems like the coveted voters that campaigns
1:00.2	are after.
1:01.6	And at this point, people have less than two weeks to vote.
1:05.0	According to the most recent NPR PBS NewsHour, Maris, poll, just 5% of voters are persuadable.
1:12.5	Which Kelsey, to be frank, I will say, seems even a tad higher than I would have thought
	...

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