How to Evaluate Real Political Polls Quickly and Reliably

Marist Poll and Morning Consult are two prominent polling organizations. Here's how to judge how trustworthy their election polls are in a few short steps.

Election polls require attention to sampled audiences and margins of error. Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

The 2016 and 2020 presidential polls were some of the least accurate in recent history. Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning in 2016 were overstated. Polls in 2020 called the correct president, but many of the estimated margins of victory were higher than reality.

G. Elliott Morris’ book, Strength in Numbers, tells the story of public polling, how the 2016 and 2020 polls went so wrong, and what readers can do to read polls more intelligently.

His two easiest suggestions to implement are checking the poll’s sample and doubling the margin of error. Here are both suggestions applied to real polls.