Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

What the Polls Are Telling Us Right Now

Voter surveys will really matter after the conventions.

May 23, 2016 at 8:27 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

He likes his bets.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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With a bunch of new polls released over the weekend, speculation about how a general election race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ends is beginning to matter. Just not in the way you would think, based on all the hype.

We have three ways to predict what will happen, each with strengths and weaknesses. First, there are prediction methods based on the “fundamentals” of the election. Then we have betting markets and polls.