Wish List for 2020 US Presidential Polling
Here are a few observations before stepping back onto to the sidelines to watch critiques of 2020 US presidential election polling methods. Some of these points are being expressed elsewhere, even if they aren’t necessarily noticed much. There’s a perception that polls failed in 2016. While it’s true they were accurate, in aggregate, they certainly didn’t predict the actual loser- because she came up short in the electoral college anyway.
Attention to this topic put pollsters in a defensive stance, and in May 2017, AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research), issued their evaluation of what wrong. It is thorough and useful. Sound scientific methods, when applied without practical knowledge may produce bad results. What can be done differently in 2020?
1. Fund high-quality polls in the few states that matter
The implicit sample frame for US presidential polling is all 50 states. Except for a few key primary races however, most of them are irrelevant. Well-funded public polling was very scarce in the most important states during the last days of the 2016 campaign: MI, PA, WI. As Pew Research has warned, “high-quality state-level polling in the U.S. remains sparse and underfunded”.