Report: Dem Pollsters Aim to Correct Accuracy Errors From Trump Elections (Newsmax)
By Jay Clemons | Sunday, 23 October 2022 02:43 PM EDT
The Wall Street Journal reports that various Democratic polling groups are exploring ways to find more accuracy with political surveys, after "understating support" for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates over the last two presidential elections.
As a starting point, the pollsters need to identify the root problem for inaccurate polling — aside from political leanings.
The No. 1 concern among pollsters and researchers, according to the Journal: It involves consistently contacting hidden Republican voters who often shy away from taking political surveys — or even publicly touting their support for Donald Trump and the
"America First," or MAGA, agenda.
In terms of accessing hard-to-reach voters, the Marist Poll has begun using text messages to invite voters to take its surveys online, Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, told the Journal.
Also, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told the Journal she has experimented with creative ways to build trust among prospective interviewees.
For one political poll in Montana, Lake's survey asked respondents if they had seen the Bobcats-Grizzlies game — a reference to the football clash of Montana vs. Montana State.
Lake's goal: Increase participation by including "questions that cue that you're local, and not liberal," she told the Journal.
From Lake's perspective, this local-not-liberal approach produced a sample that better reflected the composition of the Montana voting pool.
Another pollster, Tom Bonier, has injected a dose of common-sense reality into his data collections.
For example, Bonier admits to being skeptical of the Ohio Senate polling showing a virtual tie between candidates JD Vance (Republican) and Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio — given how Trump defeated Joe Biden by 8.1 percentage points in the 2020 presidential election, and Biden's job-approval numbers are low in the Buckeye state.
"I think everyone feels somewhat burned and gun-shy because of the polling misses of 2016 and 2020," Bonier told the Journal.