Thanks to polling errors in 2016 and 2020, public confidence in polls has tanked, according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group that often conducts polls.
They’re supposed to be a” snapshot of public opinion taken during a particular time to give a sense of what people are thinking, what they're feeling, what they value, which for democracy is kind of important,” Kevin Wagner, co-director of the PolCom Lab at Florida Atlantic University, told Tom Hudson on "The Florida Roundup."
But the samples taken might not be reflective of the population, or even be impacted by people not answering poll questions truthfully.
“Part of it is the value of sampling, and how you do your sampling, and how you do probability sampling," Wagner said. "Contrary to popular opinion, it's not how big your sample is, it's how you collect it, and whether or not that sample is ultimately representative of the larger population.”
A snapshot and not a prediction
Wagner said polling reflects a moment in time, and is not a prediction.
“I think that's where we really get into some problems. Just because something is in a particular snapshot doesn't mean it's going to stay that way," Wagner said. "And so when we just use polling to predict, then people get angry at polling.”
Mike Binder, faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida, said that at the risk of devaluing the work he does with polls, “the horse-race polling that gets most of the attention is probably the least valuable for democracy.”
“All kinds of things can happen between now and Election Day that lead you not to being able to vote. And those are things that can really shift elections. And we really saw that here in Florida in 2022 when Democrats just didn't show up in historic proportions, that led to DeSantis and Republicans overperforming so much.”Mike Binder, faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida
“Everyday regular Americans or Floridians that don't have lobbyists, this is how we as regular citizens can say, ‘hey, this issue is important to us. Here's our preference on this particular policy.’ ” Binder said.
Stephanie Murphy, a former Democratic Congress member representing parts of Central Florida, is now with Center Aisle, bipartisan nonprofit advocating for political cooperation.
The group surveyed almost 2,000 voters, more than 600 swing voters.
She said an important takeaway is that they feel ignored.
“The thing that they resoundingly believe is that neither party listens to people like them," Murphy said. "They just generally feel ignored by politicians, and they're unable to really identify the main themes of either party. Other than that, there's just a blanket distrust of both parties.”
Turnout is the key
Hudson pointed out that the presidential race is likely to come down to just a handful of states thanks to the Electoral College. Given that, what's the value of national polls around a popular vote, or even polls in a decidedly Republican or Democratic state like Florida ahead of Election Day?
Binder said they’re all leading into clues about where the electorate's going to go writ large, but it's not just a president that's on the ballot.
“There's Senate seats on the ballot in these states. There's House races, there's State House and State Senate seats, and all the roles that that are at stake if more of people of one party show up than of the other, or maybe if there's coattails from a presidential candidate or not, as we've seen, maybe from Donald Trump's side of the aisle. Those are things that people want to know about. People can plan for people and have a sense about what's happening.”
Binder adds that “not all polls are created equally” and not every methodology is as valid as others.
“That being said, we can do a pretty good job at getting the numbers right if we know what our samples look like," Binder said. "The problem is, and nobody is good at this: who is actually going to show up in November is really tricky. People can tell us they're going to vote; many of them are lying because of social desirability bias.
“All kinds of things can happen between now and Election Day that lead you not to being able to vote. And those are things that can really shift elections. And we really saw that here in Florida in 2022 when Democrats just didn't show up in historic proportions, that led to DeSantis and Republicans overperforming so much.”
This story was compiled off an interview conducted by Tom Hudson for The Florida Roundup.
