Q&A: After misses in 2016 and 2020, does polling need to be fixed again? What our survey experts say
Polling organizations have taken close looks at how election surveys are designed, administered and analyzed. We are no exception.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Polling organizations have taken close looks at how election surveys are designed, administered and analyzed. We are no exception.
Turnout in this year’s primaries for Congress and most state governorships surged compared with the last midterms in 2014, particularly among Democrats. Nearly a fifth (19.6%) of registered voters – about 37 million – cast ballots in primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives – a 56% increase over the 23.7 million who voted in 2014’s House primaries. Turnout that year was 13.7% of registered voters.
Read a Q&A with Pew Research Center’s Ruth Igielnik and Scott Keeter about a recent study about voter files.
Senate seats have rarely flipped to the other party in recent special elections, and turnout usually lags compared with regular elections for the same seat.
Special elections to the U.S. House of Representatives tend to be low-turnout events, historically speaking, and seldom result in seats switching from one party to another.
Courtney Kennedy of Pew Research Center, who chaired survey researchers organization AAPOR’s task force on political polling in the 2016 U.S. elections, discuss the group’s findings and recommendations.
The firm that runs the presidential exit poll expects to interview about 100,000 voters across the country by the time the polls close on election night.
Big partisan shifts in the House of Representatives happen, but not often. In only three of the past 12 election cycles has one party posted a net gain of more than 30 seats, and on average 93% of House members who seek re-election are voted back into office.
In 2012, only 26 House districts out of 435 chose one party’s presidential nominee and the other party’s candidate for the House.
In 2008, Barack Obama won 88 of the 100 largest U.S. counties; four years later he won 86 of them. The last time a Republican presidential candidate won more than a third of the 100 biggest counties was 1988.
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