September 29, 2016

So You’re Freaking Out About the Latest Polls. Here Are Some Important Things to Remember.

Consider this your long, deep breath before reading the next set of numbers.


Recent national polls show presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump locked in an increasingly tight race. That’s freaking out Democrats, and allowing the Trump campaign some relief after the Republican nominee’s numbers dropped significantly after the conventions.

But what are polls actually an indication of? And how do you know which poll you should trust?

What even is a poll?

Should you really be freaking out right now?

Thankfully, we’ve got some great experts in this new video from the We The Voters project, a new web-series about the US elections. Clare Malone and Harry Enten are senior political writers at FiveThirtyEight, the news and politics data analysis site headed by statistician Nate Silver. (Silver rose to fame after accurately predicting the outcome of 49 out of 50 states in the 2008 elections, and then all 50 states in 2012.) Using easy-to-understand analogies, Malone and Enten illustrate how polls work and what makes certain polls more representative than others.

Watch the video for a few key takeaways, but here’s a pretty important one: Be aware of how polls are presented. A poll might be nonpartisan in itself, but the outlets that report them are free to deploy their own spin.

Or, the candidates themselves can self-servingly select which polls they choose to showcase. Case in point:

As NPR points out, most poll numbers show that Trump didn’t “win” Monday’s presidential debate. Instead, Trump used online reader polls, which are less scientific, to boast that he did. On Tuesday, a Fox News executive reminded Fox producers that online polls “do not meet our editorial standards,” according to a memo obtained by Business Insider.

And of course, you shouldn’t rely on just one poll. Generally, you should be looking at a number of polls to get an overall picture of how a candidate is doing—unless you want to flat-out deny reality, like this top Trump adviser:

Stay tuned for more from We The Voters, a new digital, nonpartisan campaign to inform voters of key issues this election season.

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Don’t just click away.

We need your help. We’re halfway through our Summer Membership Drive, and only $35,000 toward our $200,000 goal. But there’s good news: This week only, every donation will be doubled, up to $50,000, thanks to a generous reader.

That’s twice the impact for intrepid reporting that peels back the layers to publish the truth—and the context you need to break it all down. It’s twice the fuel for investigations on voting rights and justice, critical in this midterm election year. And it’s twice the power for exposing the chaos and corruption of a White House trying to control the narrative.

This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. And every donation will be doubled.

We cannot do this work without you. Join the fight. Double your donation to defend democracy.

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