Are Polls Accurate?

A poll worker at Montbello High School in Denver. Photo courtesy the Rocky Mountain News archives via the Denver Public Library

In a long interview with Rocky Mountain PBS’s reporter Andrea Kramar, the mechanics and trustworthiness of polling was discussed. Concerning polling accuracy, I argued that pollsters are strongly incentivized to be accurate. Their reputations depend on their poll results aligning with the election results. Even candidate and party pollsters need to be accurate, as do liberal and conservative media outlets.

Does liberal or conservative media skew polls?
All these polls at some point have to run up against what happens on election day – our version of the Super Bowl. If you want to stay in the polling business, you better be in the ballpark or else have a good explanation as to what happened.

If you perform poorly?
You won’t get hired. Your newspaper will lose credibility. Newspapers frequently change pollsters when things don’t go well.

READ INTERVIEW:
Reality Check: An insider’s guide to how political polls work