Can AI Stand In for Human Survey-Takers? Not Really
Synthetic surveys using digital twins do a poor job estimating the public mood and are especially error-prone for some subgroups, including Republicans and Black adults.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
Methods
-
-
Weighting Polls on Party Affiliation and Past Vote
This report explains how political weighting works, how Pew Research Center does it, and some of its limitations.
-
No Easy Fix for Bogus Respondents in Online Opt-In Polls
A new study examining online opt-in polling finds that while removing bogus respondents generally improves data quality, no single method reliably solves the problem.
-
Video: How precise are polls really?
How precise are polls … really? Here’s a little secret: Even the best pollsters need some wiggle room when sharing results. This “wiggle room” (also known as the margin of error) is the range within the true answer likely falls.
-
Party Affiliation Fact Sheet (NPORS)
Explore trends in partisan identification among U.S. adults using data from Pew Research Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS).
-
National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)
NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics.
-
Video: How to spot a good poll vs. a bad poll
Anyone can ask a survey question online – but does that make it a good poll? They might call themselves a pollster, but their methods aren’t exactly best practice — and the internet is flooded with these low-quality polls. Here are a few simple things you can look for to tell whether a poll is legit or sketchy.
-
Q&A: Do AI and bogus respondents threaten polling’s future?
Courtney Kennedy, vice president of methods and innovation, answers some common questions about the current polling landscape in the U.S.
-
Video: Can polls tell us who will win on Election Day?
We often hear a candidate is leading, trailing, or the race is tied. This is based on “horse race” polling, which estimates how much support candidates have, based on how people answer surveys leading up to an election. But accurately measuring the horse race is wicked hard for a few reasons.
-
Video: How do polls work when no one answers the phone anymore?
Ever wonder how we collect our data? Today, most polls are conducted online. But, most pollsters reject the idea that “one size fits all” when it comes to polling, so we still use phone calls or mail to reach people.
