Poll
November 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I am still kicking myself for having credited the Trafalgar polls of Minnesota and other states in the runup to this week’s midterm elections. I think we should account for our errors. I apologized to readers in “After last night” and I reiterate it here. I think we should acknowledge our errors and account for them. My mistake in this case was attributable to my understanding of Trafalgar’s recent record
»
November 12, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A disproportionate number of the comments on our recent posts critical of Trump’s role in the mid-term election, and his responses in the last few days, have disagreed sharply with us. So I think it is time to hear from a wider cross-section of our readership—from the 99 percent of our readers who seldom or never comment here, on the question. Not a long poll—just two short questions. (Be sure
»
November 9, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I offer just a few comments — ranging from personal self-evaluation to national results to the local Minnesota scene — on the fiasco this time. Here are my thoughts more or less in the order they occur to me with the results of a few races still in doubt: • I was pessimistic as usual, but I prefer to think of my pessimism as the higher realism. • I expected
»
November 7, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It is not news that the Republicans’ share of black and Hispanic votes is rising, but the latest Wall Street Journal poll has some recent numbers: About 17% of Black voters said they would pick a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat in Journal polls both in late October and in August. That is a substantially larger share than the 8% of Black voters who voted for former President
»
November 5, 2022 — Scott Johnson
RCP’s rankings place Emerson College 6th out of 23 multi-state pollsters in accuracy over the past three election cycles. (The rankings are the work of RCP’s Polling Accountability Project.) Emerson trails Trafalgar, which comes in 5th on RCP’s rankings. I have relied on Trafalgar’s work in reading the tea leaves based on what I believe to be an impressive record. In any event, below is a summary of Emerson’s final
»
November 3, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I wrote here this morning about the current Quinnipiac poll of adults and registered voters. I found it of interest, but wondered why Quinnipiac is serving up a poll of registered voters less than a week out from the midterm elections. I called both Quinnipiac poll analyst Tim Malloy and the executive listed on the press release before posting my comments. The executive was unreachable, but I was able to
»
November 3, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Looking for tea leaves to read in advance of the midterm elections this coming Tuesday, I turn to the results of Quinnipiac’s national poll released yesterday (press release here, full results here). Quinnipiac must be something of a joke. It polled “2,203 U.S. adults” from October 26-30 with a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points. The survey included 2,010 registered voters with a margin of error of +/-
»
November 2, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The most remarkable finding of the latest Wall Street Journal poll on the mid-term election is the yuuuge swing of suburban women toward the GOP since August: The new survey shows that white women living in suburban areas, who make up 20% of the electorate, now favor Republicans for Congress by 15 percentage points, moving 27 percentage points away from Democrats since the Journal’s August poll. That is one whopping
»
November 1, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I’ve been looking for tea leaves to read in connection with the midterm elections next week. The Twitter feed of Interactive Polls links to the Wall Street Journal poll reported here in today’s paper. (The tweet links to an accessible version of the story here.) The poll was conducted by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio and Democratic pollster John Anzalone. I trust that when commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, they
»
October 25, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I frequently comment on podcasts and elsewhere about some of the methodological problems with current opinion polling, but rather than get into the arcana of sampling difficulties, statistical weighting, question design, etc., let me suggest a simpler method of instantly detecting a crappy poll: see if it’s from NBC News. The latest NBC News poll just out finds that 45 percent of voters approve of Joe Biden’s performance in office,
»
October 24, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Asked by Jonathan Capehart how Vice President Kamala Harris is doing, President Biden responded: “She’s doing great. First of all, she’s smart as hell.” So you know we are in the land of the whopper. Biden continued his tribute to her: “She has a backbone like a ramrod…there isn’t any public figure that is, you know, 60 percent favorable ratings, I mean, you know, most of, and, but—she’s doing a
»
October 23, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Alpha News (on whose board I sit) commissioned Robert Cahaly’s Trafalgar Group to conduct a second poll of likely Minnesota voters. We knew that other Minnesota polls would be released around this time. We thought that it might be helpful to hear at the same time from the pollster with Trafalgar’s impressive record of accuracy. When Blois Olson reported Trafalgar’s Minnesota results in his Morning Take newsletter this past Friday
»
October 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Democrats are filling up their diapers over yesterday’s New York Times/Siena poll that offers a picture of all the macro-indicators lining up for a Republican tidal wave in next month’s election. There is one curious aspect of the demographic breakdown that is prompting a question: why does the GOP seem to be doing best among “Gen-X” voters age 45-64, as seen in this chart: I can actually think of one
»
September 26, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I’m observing Rosh Hashanah today. My friend Howard Root is lending a hand to a few Republican campaigns this year. Yesterday I asked him if he would respond to my comments on Trafalgar’s Minnesota poll that I could schedule to post this morning. Howard offered these observations (and I thank him for helping me take the day off): 1. What I find so refreshing about Robert Cahaly and his Trafalgar
»
September 25, 2022 — Steven Hayward
John notes below the latest “mainstream” polls showing both Biden and the Democrats reaching the burnt toast stage of this election cycle, but amidst the lingering questions about the accuracy of polling these days, it should be noted that the outcome of the midterms presents a huge dilemma for Democrats no matter how the election turns out. If Democrats get drowned in a wave, they face the serious problem of
»
September 25, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I have absolutely no feel for the state of play in Minnesota’s elections — early voting commenced this past Friday — so I was especially interested in the results of the Alpha News/Trafalgar Group poll results of our statewide races that Alpha reported here last week. I believe that the poll is the best out there and that the results are accurate within the margin of error as of the
»
September 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Trafalgar’s poll results in Minnesota and elsewhere this year stand out from the pack, as they have done generally in recent years. Dan McLaughlin’s excellent NRO column on Trafalgar’s methodology as explained by Trafalgar founder Robert Cahaly includes this comment on the current state of play: On the issue environment, Cahaly says that he hasn’t seen any issue in a long time that motivates people as much as opposition to
»
