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In recent years, pollsters have wrestled with how to deal with the growing number of cellphone users. The problem is how to gather accurate polling data now that a majority (53 percent) of U.S. phone users have cut the cord to traditional landlines and depend solely on cellphones. Unlike landline numbers, cellphone numbers can’t readily be accessed through phone books and other listings used by pollsters. There are some alternative methods available. The Pew Research Center announced last year that 75 percent of its polling contacts were from a list of cellphone users. However, the added costs and complications can...

ome Donald Trump supporters are too ashamed to admit it, according to a new study that suggests that his poll numbers may be even higher than GOP strategists think. Researchers at the Morning Consult polling firm say that when they polled almost 2,500 Republican and Republican-leaning voters using a variety of methods last week, they found Trump's support was around 6% higher among those polled online, compared to those who spoke to a live human. His support was 4% higher among those who received automated calls. In what the Los Angeles Times calls the "most telling part of the experiment,"...

After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, Americans are now more likely to name terrorism as the top issue facing the U.S. than to name any other issue -- including those that have typically topped the list recently, such as the economy and the government. About one in six Americans, 16%, now identify terrorism as the most important U.S. problem, up from just 3% in early November. This is the highest percentage of Americans to mention terrorism in a decade, although it is still lower than the 46% measured after 9/11. Before 2001, terrorism barely registered...

Everyone today is freaking out about a poll from Monmouth University that purports to show Donald Trump getting 41% of the Republican vote. There's a lot to note about exactly how garbage this poll is. It is so bad that Monmouth's own polling director is basically disavowing it. If you are interested in a relatively robust writeup of the methodological problems with the poll itself, which are primarily driven by the insane method Monmouth used to select their sample, you can check this Politico writeup here. That having been said, we pretend that any of the other polls are more...

The current Huffington Post Pollster average has Trump at nearly 36 percent in the polls nationwide. His closest competition comes from Ted Cruz (14 percent) and Marco Rubio (12 percent). The polling average in Iowa has Trump at 28.5 percent, leading Cruz by about seven points. In New Hampshire, nobody comes close, with Trump polling at 26.8 percent and his nearest competition, Marco Rubio, at just under 14 percent. With numbers like these, how can Trump not roll his way to the Republican nomination? Or, for those who are terrified of the prospect of a Trump nomination, the more comforting...

A new poll finds Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) gaining ground on Donald Trump in the early voting state of New Hampshire. The Adrian Gray Consulting poll has Trump leading Rubio narrowly among all GOP voters in the state, but with Rubio in first place among the Republicans "very likely" to vote in the primary. Among all Republican voters, the survey shows Trump with 21 percent support, followed by Rubio with 17 percent, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) with 11 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ben Carson with 8 percent each. But when the sample is narrowed to "likely"...

Current averages adjusted

"In this week's edition of the boss's Kristol Clear e-newsletter..readers are asked to rank their top three picks for the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee. The boss's impressions of Iowans seem to be borne out by the new Monmouth poll.The boss writes:>>>..........................Here's the tally:the first number is the percentage of the ballots on which the candidate was selected for first place; the second is the percentage of ballots in which the candidate was chosen for any of first, second or third.Ted Cruz 30% 66%Marco Rubio 26% 60%Donald Trump 17% 32%Ben Carson 6% 28%Chris Christie 5% 28%Carly Fiorina 4% 32%Mike Huckabee 3%...

Barack Obama's approval scores have plunged into the low 40s as a majority of Americans now say they disapprove of the job he's doing as president. The Gallup Poll's nationwide survey showed this week that between 52 and 53 percent of adult Americans gave Obama failing grades on his performance in office. Only 43 percent approved of the job he's been doing. His sluggish, sub-par, part-time-job economy was the chief factor, as it has been throughout his presidency. But the sharp rise in deadly terrorist attacks in Europe and reports of plots on the United States contributed to fears that...

Adjusted Polling Averages

I am posing an experiment in polling weighted trends, will get rid of push polls later

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/11/09/incredible-amazing-almost-well-unbelievable-ben-carson-skyrockets-with-massive-surge-in-south-carolina-poll/

Has political polling reached the end of the line? While some won’t find it as terribly shocking anymore, the polls in Kentucky which had previously been considered among the most reliable missed the Bevin win in the governor’s race by a wide margin. This wasn’t the first time either. The last few cycles down there saw the Bluegrass Poll taking one hit after another and they responded this week with something of an apology. The wide gulf between the results of Tuesday’s election races and the most recent Bluegrass Poll is a source of frustration for the Herald-Leader and its...

If you'd asked most political people a week ago who'd be celebrating his victory in the Kentucky gubernatorial race Wednesday morning, they'd have probably guessed it would be the Democrat, Jack Conway. Kentucky has a long tradition of electing Democrats to the highest position in the state; since 1971, only one Republican had won the position (Ernie Fletcher in 2003). But also, the polls! Surveys conducted in late October showed Conway with a decent lead over Republican Matt Bevin -- suggesting that the race would be close, but Conway was likely to win. Conway didn't win. Conway got beaten, badly...

I mean this sincerely. Just shut the hell up. Give it a rest already. We are the United States of America, the greatest, most prosperous, freest, strongest nation in the history of the planet, and all we seem to do is whine. Knock it off. Whining is the new bipartisan common ground. Hillary Clinton whines that she’s the victim of sexism, Donald Trump whines that he’s the victim of bad polling. No one who doesn’t already care intently cares at all. That’s what it’s really about. Whining isn’t to change minds or draw in new support or sympathy; it’s to...

Americans are now in a historically long period of distrust and dissatisfaction regarding their government and their country. This goes a long way in explaining why political outsiders are dominating the polls in the Republican presidential race. Even quality conservative candidates such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz lag far behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson. They are tainted by the mere fact that they are politicians. The Pew Research Center reported data last year covering a period of 56 years, showing the percentage of Americans saying they trust the federal government to do what is right "always/most of the...

I am not predisposed to putting up endless vanity posts. But I felt it necessary to comment on the polling methods being used for the upcoming 2016 presidential election. I will stipulate, for those who don’t know, at this point I support Donald Trump. I have seen things I have never seen in a run-up to the voting that I have never seen before, and my solid memory goes back to 1968 when I was in High School and worked on the campaign of Richard Nixon.

By now the sleepless nights for the Republican establishment types must be piling up. They have made every attack they could think of to derail Donald Trump and nothing has worked. They have constructed “gotcha questions” for their Fox News stooges to ask and Trump has shrugged them off. They have been caught planting questioners in town hall meetings and were exposed for their deceit. They look more and more like Wile E. Coyote with each passing day. They have willingly accepted and cheered on attacks aimed at destroying Trump; attacks devised by Democrats and their media toadies in direct...

Let’s face it: the 2012 election cycle wasn’t kind to most pollsters and analysts, and neither was the 2014 midterm cycle that followed. Most had to go back after the 2012 election, offer mea culpas, and rethink the assumptions built into the process. Gallup wants to go even further than that, however — they want to opt out of the process altogether: Gallup has been the country’s gold standard for horse-race election polling ever since its legendary founder, George Gallup, predicted Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide reelection in 1936.But after a bruising 2012 cycle, in which its polls were farther off...

Trump's dominance continues