Can Polls Survive Losing Half the Country?
Yes, voter surveys were very wrong two years ago, but the mistakes weren’t the result of partisan bias.
The only poll that matters, as politicians like to say.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North AmericaAttacking the credibility of polls (and pollsters) has become a kind of bank shot for those aiming to destroy the credibility of the institution that polls simulate: elections. Among MAGA adherents, if the polls are off, it’s not because polling has become more difficult. It’s because everything is corrupt and nothing is true.
The political science department of Vanderbilt University has said that pre-election polls in 2020 exhibited the “largest errors in 40 years.” That mistake hovers over the 2022 election and influences the work, and reputations, of the partisans and pollsters (and partisan pollsters) who are trying to gauge the trajectory of a large, diverse and unruly electorate.