PLUS: Understanding how 2020's election polls performed and what it might mean for other kinds of survey work
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December 8, 2020
** Methods
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A quarterly digest of the Center's latest methodological research and data science discoveries · Subscribe ↗ ([link removed])
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** Measuring news consumption in a digital era ([link removed])
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Just as American news organizations have had to drastically reevaluate their business models in the transition to digital technologies, it would make sense that researchers trying to measure the public’s news consumption need to reexamine the traditional methods they have used. A new Pew Research Center analysis ([link removed]) explores how to best measure the public’s news consumption, addressing two questions: Which current survey practices work well, and where might changes be in order? The study is the culmination of a yearlong effort employing a multimodal approach ([link removed]) , drawing on cognitive interviews, split-form survey experiments, comparisons between passive data and self-reported survey data, and a full, nationally representative survey.
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** Understanding how 2020’s election polls performed and what it might mean for other kinds of survey work ([link removed])
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Taken in the aggregate, preelection polls in the United States pointed to the strong likelihood that Democrat Joe Biden would pick up several states that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 and, in the process, win a popular and electoral vote majority over Republican President Donald Trump. That indeed came to pass – but the election was much closer than polls suggested in several battleground states and more decisive for Trump elsewhere. On Fact Tank, Pew Research Center’s survey methodology experts provide a preliminary characterization ([link removed]) of the nature and scope of the 2020 polling errors and suggest some possible causes.
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** A voter data resource: Detailed demographic tables about verified voters in 2016, 2018 ([link removed])
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To assist journalists and the public in making comparisons of 2020 data to the electorates of 2016 and 2018, the Center published an expanded set of data tables ([link removed]) from interviews we conducted with national samples of verified voters in the wake of the 2016 ([link removed]) and 2018 ([link removed]) elections. Interviews from 2016 were matched to five different commercial voter files ([link removed]) that contain official records of voter registration and turnout, while the 2018 data was matched to two voter files. The data can be used to explore how different groups voted in
the elections and how voters and nonvoters differed; it can also be used to look at demographic differences between the Clinton and Trump coalitions.
* Access the detailed spreadsheet here ([link removed])
** Exploring differences in how Democrats and Republicans behave on Twitter ([link removed])
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Twitter has become a popular venue for Americans to engage with issues of the day, but not all U.S. adults use the platform in similar ways. Pew Research Center’s Data Labs team recently published an analysis ([link removed]) examining the different ways in which members of the two major U.S. political parties engage with the platform. Researchers collected the Twitter handles of more than 3,500 U.S. adult volunteers and used the Twitter API to study their activity over a period of ten months, from November 2019 through September 2020. The study found that top 10% most active users produced 92% of all tweets from U.S. adults during the study period and that 69% of these highly prolific users identify as Democrats.
** New on “Decoded” ([link removed])
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Pew Research Center’s Decoded ([link removed]) blog focuses on the “how” behind our numbers. The blog features content ranging from survey methods, to data science, to data visualization, and allows researchers to build on and engage with our work. Explore some of our latest posts:
* Urban, suburban or rural? Americans’ perceptions of their own community type differ by party ([link removed])
* Testing survey questions ahead of time can help sharpen a poll’s focus ([link removed])
* How focus groups informed our study about nationalism and international engagement in the U.S. and UK ([link removed])
* Adapting how we ask about the gender of our survey respondents ([link removed])
** Featured datasets
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Pew Research Center makes its data available to the public for secondary analysis after a period of time. All of the Center’s available datasets can be downloaded here ([link removed]) , and select datasets follow. See this post ([link removed]) for more information on how to use our datasets and contact us at
[email protected] (mailto:
[email protected]) with any questions.
American Trends Panel Wave 37 (social media news, news platform preferences) ([link removed])
Survey conducted July 30-Aug. 12, 2018 among 4,581 U.S. adults.
American Trends Panel Wave 34 (biomedical and food issues) ([link removed])
Survey conducted April 23-May 6, 2018 among 2,537 U.S. adults.
2019 Core Trends Survey (internet and mobile technology) ([link removed])
Survey conducted Jan. 8-Feb. 7, 2019 among 1,502 U.S. adults via landlines and cellphones.
** Support Pew Research Center
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In times of uncertainty, good decisions demand good data. Please support Pew Research Center with a contribution on the Center’s behalf to our parent organization, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank. As a neutral source of data and analysis, Pew Research Center does not take policy positions.
© 2020 Pew Research Center
