CAN YOU TRUST POLLS? WE HAVE SOME ANSWERS
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
 
As we like to remind the world, we have some of the best readers in political journalism. With that in mind, we are turning to you this election for your thoughts and questions.  
 
Keep them coming here.
 
We’ll tackle some of your questions over the next few weeks, starting with this one from Maine. Elizabeth wrote: 
 
How much weight can be put upon polling? I know that I don't answer the phone for unfamiliar numbers, so who is actually responding to these polls? When looking back over the past election cycles they have been ‘off.’ What are the pollsters doing to actually achieve accuracy and balance in who they reach?  
 
Excellent question, Elizabeth.
 
Our answer begins with this excellent basic guide to polling written by the PBS NewsHour’s Laura Santhanam, who coordinates our end of the Marist/PBS NewsHour/NPR poll and is clear-eyed about the limits of polling.
 
One excerpt addresses a few of Elizabeth’s questions: 
 
“‘The 2020 polls featured polling error of an unusual magnitude,’ a 2021 investigation by the American Association for Public Opinion Research concluded. Yet ‘there is no evidence that respondents were lying,’ the authors found. The task force wrote that ‘conclusive statements are impossible’ to make about why those estimates were so off – ‘the highest in 40 years for the national popular vote’ – but it is plausible that Trump voters might have been less likely to agree to be polled.”

In other words, researchers agree, recent polling has historically been off. But the precise source of the problem is not clear.  
 
So what are pollsters doing to improve, and how much trust should we give to polls at all?
 
There is fiery debate underway over these questions. 
 
The New York Times’ Nate Cohn took this on a month ago, responding to the question, “Can we trust the polls?” Here is how he put it:
 
“Polls are not exact measurements … They are imprecise estimates — and even the classic margin of error seriously understates the actual degree of uncertainty.”
 
Essentially: Be cautious in how much trust you place in polls.
 
What about any improvements?

There are debates about that as well, but Cohn sums those up as more marginal than game changers. 
 
“Is it a little scary? Yes,” Cohn wrote. “We pollsters are stuck with the same boats that flipped last time. We would like to buy something sturdier, but there isn’t anything better on the market.”
 
This week, RealClearPolitics also addressed the issue, writing that there are many “quality pollsters and media outlets that are doing excellent work,” but there are also “pollsters and news organizations that are doing less-than-stellar work.”
 
Our Politics Monday regular Amy Walter took a bigger-picture approach on Twitter, writing, “We should stop expecting political polling to do things it cannot do. It will never be as precise as we think it should be.”
 
What does this mean for voters?
 
Polls are still useful, but with the right approach. I think of them as a compass for general direction, not a turn-by-turn guide to a static endpoint. They can guide you broadly and show you when directions have changed significantly.   
 
For voters, we can help by providing one key tool now, and we have another one on the way.

WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!
 
Do you have questions about voting or the political process ahead of this year’s midterm elections? Voting rules can be confusing, especially after so many changes have been enacted on the local and state level over the last two years. Submit your questions here.
 
Your questions can help guide our coverage in the next couple of weeks.

A NEW SPECIAL FOR THE NEWEST VOTERS IN THE ELECTORATE

By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage
Senior Editor, Digital
 
About 8.3 million young Americans have turned 18 since the 2020 general election, according to one estimate. 
 
That’s a sizable group of potential voters — including a higher share of people of color than the general adult population — but will political campaigns engage them?
 
Student reporters from the NewsHour’s Student Reporting Labs will host a new half-hour special, “We the Young People: Moments of Truth,” a week before Election Day to examine what’s at stake for the newest members of the electorate.
 
The event, airing Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. EDT, will cover some key issues Generation Z cares about. It will be co-hosted by SRL’s Tiffany Rodriguez of Philadelphia and Berto Suarez of Rockville, Maryland. RSVP to the event here.
 
The run-up to the 2022 midterms, too, has seen Gen Z candidates for the first time, including Karoline Leavitt, a New Hampshire Republican, and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Florida Democrat, both making their bids for Congress.
 
Frost, in a Sept. 6 interview with Here’s the Deal, said he’s often asked whether Gen Z cares about different things than other generations when it comes to politics. “And I actually don’t think that,” he said.
 
“I think Gen Z cares about the same things that all the other generations have always cared about: being able to live their life free of violence and with the resources they need, the opportunities we want in a clean environment,” he added. “But the difference is we see these same issues through a different lens because of our upbringing and the times that we were born in.”


#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Matt Loffman, @mattloff
Politics Producer
 
The politics team has been researching and number-crunching ahead of the midterms, so this week’s trivia question arises from all that pre-planning. Let’s look at Senate races, including some of the most competitive races this election cycle.
 
A total of 35 Senate seats are up for grabs in November.
 
Our question: In how many of those states were Joe Biden and Donald Trump's vote totals separated by less than one percent in the 2020 presidential election?
 
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
 
Last week, we asked: In the past 100 years, what is the greatest number of House seats won during midterm elections by the party of the sitting president?
 
The answer: Nine. This is the number of House seats won by the Democrats — with President Franklin D. Roosevelt as president — in the 1934 midterm election.
 
Congratulations to our winners: Janet Liston and Dean M. Gottehrer!
 
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.