The Big Question: How Do You Make Polls More Accurate?
A Q&A with pollster Ann Selzer on why polls have stumbled in predicting the outcome of the last two U.S. presidential elections, and what can make them better.
Was 2020 twilight for election polling in America?
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images North AmericaFrank Wilkinson: You’ve conducted the famed Iowa Poll, published by the Des Moines Register and rated A+ by FiveThirtyEight, since the 1990s. It’s an Iowa institution. And in your last poll, published the weekend before the election, you found Republican Senator Joni Ernst ahead by 4 points and President Donald Trump ahead by 7 statewide — which is pretty much the way the race turned out, but not what other polls predicted. In fact, polling proved dodgy across the country in 2020, with many surveys missing the mark for a second presidential election in a row.
I actually received an email this week from someone whom I respect a great deal that included the phrase, “polling is broken.” Is that correct?