Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024
Polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.
Voter Files
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Republican Gains in 2022 Midterms Driven Mostly by Turnout Advantage
68% of U.S. adults who voted in the 2020 presidential election turned out to vote in the 2022 midterms. Former President Donald Trump’s voters turned out at a higher rate in 2022 (71%) than did President Joe Biden’s voters (67%).
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A voter data resource: Detailed demographic tables about verified voters in 2016, 2018
Data tables from interviews we conducted with verified voters after the 2016 and 2018 elections may help answer some election 2020 questions.
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What we can trust 2020 election polls to tell us
Polls can’t predict the future. But they are the best tool to reveal the public’s priorities and values, and why people vote the way they do.
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Democrats Made Gains From Multiple Sources in 2018 Midterm Victories
Our analysis of verified voters examines what 2016 voters and nonvoters did in the 2018 midterm elections and offers a detailed portrait of the demographic composition and vote choices of the 2018 electorate.
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Exit polls, election surveys and more: A guide for the 2018 midterms
On election night 2018, besides the exit polls there will be an additional source of data on who voted and why, developed by The Associated Press, Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago and based on a very different methodology. That means that depending on where you go for election news, you may get a somewhat different portrait of this year’s electorate.
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Comparing Survey Sampling Strategies: Random-Digit Dial vs. Voter Files
A new telephone survey experiment finds that an opinion poll drawn from a commercial voter file produces results similar to those from a sample based on random-digit dialing.
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For Most Trump Voters, ‘Very Warm’ Feelings for Him Endured
In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory, an overwhelming majority of those who said they had voted for him had “warm” feelings for him.
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Commercial Voter Files and the Study of U.S. Politics
A new analysis demystifies voter files, the widely-used and comprehensive digital databases used to better understand the U.S. electorate.
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Q&A: The growing use of ‘voter files’ in studying the U.S. electorate
Read a Q&A with Pew Research Center’s Ruth Igielnik and Scott Keeter about a recent study about voter files.
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