Did the Polls Get It Right? National Polling Conference Review the 2016 Election.

The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) national conference will assemble some of the nation’s leading pollsters to review the accuracy and reporting of polls in the 2016 presidential elections.

President Trump now regularly attacks polls he does not like, along with the media outlets that report them as fake and rigged. His patented riffs to delegitimize polls is to claim “the election polls were a WAY OFF disaster,” as he tweeted most recently attacking CNN. In fact, the poll reported was a Gallup Research poll showing Trump’s approval rating had sank to 37% after starting at 45% shortly after the inauguration.

So, were the polls inaccurate November 8? Even if they were within the margin of acceptable error, were they misreported? Clearly, the nation’s political establishment and citizens were shocked by the result.

A four-day conference in New Orleans on May 18-21 will deconstruct the 2016 election polling and reporting and propose improvements.

The theme for AAPOR’s 2017 Annual Conference is: Embracing Change and Diversity in Public Opinion and Social Science Research.

Among the panels featured are:

• A polling post-mortem and related papers spawned by the extraordinary 2016 election.
• Latest research on survey methods, including non-response, question wording, questionnaire design, interviewers and interviewing, and sampling.
• Diversity: Public opinion and research on racial, ethnic, religious, gender and sexual orientation issues.
• Public opinion in shaping policy and debate on pivotal topics, like healthcare, immigration, income equality, marijuana and gun control. The Crossley Center will chair a panel on marijuana and public opinion change.

Public opinion and survey researchers are working in a time of unprecedented change, challenge and opportunity. AAPOR’s annual conference is the premier event for researchers, practitioners and consumers of social data to present the latest materials and learn from one another.