How Political Polls Really Work

The Run-Up

The New York Times

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our listeners have lots of questions about polling. Questions such as: Is it still relevant? How does it work? How do you get a reliable sample when people don’t answer the phone? At this point in a usual primary season, still weeks away from Super Tuesday, most of the attention of polling would be on who might capture the nomination. But this year, with the race all but set, we’re anticipating nine months of polling on two men we already know very well. Today, to prepare for that future and to answer the many questions on the subject, we go behind the scenes with the New York Times polling team. And Nate Cohn, our chief political analyst, introduces us to “double haters” and other swingy voters he thinks will decide 2024. Do you have a question you want us to answer? Email and tell us what you’re curious about, ideally in the form of a voice memo, at therunup@nytimes.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, my name is Leslie, and I live in Virginia.
0:05.0	Hi, I'm Michael in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
0:08.0	Hi, my name is Henry.
0:09.0	Hi, this is Christian from Texas.
0:11.0	Hi, this is Pete. Hi, this is Christian from Texas. Hi, this is Pete.
0:13.0	Hi, this is Christian from Sacramento.
0:15.0	When people reach out to us with questions.
0:18.0	I'm wondering how polling works.
0:19.5	I'm curious about polling in general.
0:22.1	I have a question about polling data. My question is about polling in general. I have a question about polling data.
0:24.0	My question is about polling methodologies.
0:26.0	One of the things they ask about most is polling.
0:29.0	Is polling still relevant?
0:31.0	Have the polling tactics changed since 2020?
0:33.4	How do pollsters reach out to people?
0:35.8	Is it via cell phone?
0:37.7	Is it text links, things like that?
0:39.9	A lot of younger voters don't have landlines or reliably answer their phone.
0:44.3	How do you get a reliable poll sample from this population?
0:47.6	I know a lot of pre-election hype is based on the polls, but I don't know anyone in my
0:51.8	circles at least, and I sure haven't been part of poll questions.
0:55.0	Thanks.
	...

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