Throughout this series, we’ve been looking at a lot of polls. And let me tell you from my own experience as not-a-data person, after a certain point, polls tend to become just another series of numbers—either bereft of meaning, or confusing and contradictory. One of our challenges as media professionals is figuring out how to…

Earlier this week, we covered how to assess the public opinion landscape of the issues we work on. Having an understanding of this big picture,  now we are ready to use polling data to inform our media strategy. Developing an informed strategy is all about audience: defining who they are, learning as much as you…

In the last two weeks, we discussed how the polls performed during the midterms, putting into practice our recommendations on  what to pay attention to when evaluating a new poll and how to interpret polling of underrepresented communities. With that foundational understanding of polling under our belt, we now turn to actually using public opinion…

This post is part of an ongoing series on the ins and outs of polling. If you missed the previous posts on Five Things to Pay Attention to in a New Poll or Polling Underrepresented Communities, go back and read them! Our series will continue with posts from our comms colleagues on incorporating polls and…

With five days before the midterms, many of us are preparing to peruse exit poll data hoping to understand how or why Americans voted one way or another.  But we’ll do so with caution since recent elections have reminded us of the limitations of exit polling—primarily problems with representative sampling (because we won’t know what…

You’ve just read in the news: “77% of surveyed registered voters said that ‘Reducing the influence of special interests and corruption in Washington’ is either the most important or a very important issue facing the country.” We often see the media citing statistics on how the public feels about major issues. Where do they get…