There will almost certainly be far more nonvoters than voters this year. Nonvoters are younger, less educated and more financially stressed than likely voters. They are also significantly less Republican and more likely to approve of Obama’s job performance.
The midterms were a quarter of the newshole last week, and have been the third most covered story of the year, behind only the economy and the Gulf oil spill.
Despite such challenges as a growing wireless-only population, possible racially-related response bias and greater-than-usual difficulties in forecasting turnout, polllsters’ methods were evidently adequate to the task.
In an exclusive interview, Joe Lenski, co-founder and Executive Vice President of Edison Media Research discusses his organization’s plans for conducting exit polls on November 4, given this year’s special challenges.
In remarks at a dinner at the Newseum hosted by the Roper Center, Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut analyzed the voter preferences revealed in exit and post-election polls and their implications for the incoming administration.
From Jefferson to Palin, politicians of the left and right have blamed the media for public discontent with their policies, politics or personal behavior.
While a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters (53%) favor a so-called “Dream Ticket,” fully 54% of Obama supporters do not want Clinton chosen as his running mate.
The latest Pew Research Center national survey, including a sample of 503 adults on a cell phone, finds that the overall estimate of voter presidential preference is modestly affected by whether or not the cell phone respondents are included.
If they turn out to be their party’s nominees, both Barack Obama and John McCain need to educate voters about themselves in some pretty basic, and challenging, ways.