Understanding how 2020 election polls performed and what it might mean for other kinds of survey work
Many who follow polls are asking how these errors could happen. Here, we’ll take a preliminary shot at answering that question.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide
The U.S. is not the only country wrestling with political fissures. But the pandemic has revealed how pervasive the divide in U.S. politics is.
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Most mail and provisional ballots got counted in past U.S. elections – but many did not
In the 2016 general election, voters submitted nearly 33.5 million mail ballots, but more than 400,000 (1.2% of the total) weren’t counted.
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2020 election reveals two broad voting coalitions fundamentally at odds
If one takeaway from the election is historic voter participation, another may be the political polarization that has come to define the U.S.
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Amid pandemic, the long decline of in-person voting on Election Day is likely to accelerate this year
Votes cast on Election Day have grown steadily less significant over the past several election cycles as a share of total votes cast.
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Two-thirds of U.S. adults say they’ve seen their own news sources report facts meant to favor one side
59% of Americans say made-up information that is intended to mislead causes a “great deal” of confusion about the 2020 presidential election.
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From voter registration to mail-in ballots, how do countries around the world run their elections?
Ahead of the 2020 U.S. election, here’s a look at how elections are run in the United States and other countries around the world.
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Both Republicans and Democrats cite masks as a negative effect of COVID-19, but for very different reasons
When asked to describe how the COVID-19 outbreak has affected them negatively, Democrats and Republicans are divided on the subject of masks.
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What we can trust 2020 election polls to tell us
Polls can’t predict the future. But they are the best tool to reveal the public’s priorities and values, and why people vote the way they do.
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Public opinion about coronavirus is more politically divided in U.S. than in other advanced economies
Across 13 countries, people’s assessments of how well their country had handled the coronavirus outbreak were closely tied to partisanship.
