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Election polling errors across time and space.

Will Jennings¹, Christopher Wlezien²

¹Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. w.j.jennings@soton.ac.uk.

Nature Human Behaviour

|April 3, 2019

Summary

Recent election polls are not performing unusually, despite common beliefs. Poll accuracy varies by country and political context, but not in unexpected ways.

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Area of Science:

Political Science
Survey Methodology
Statistical Analysis

Background:

Concerns exist regarding the increasing prevalence and accuracy of election polls.
Understanding trends in polling errors is crucial for assessing democratic processes.

Purpose of the Study:

To conduct an over-time and cross-national assessment of prediction errors in pre-election polls.
To determine if polling errors have become more prevalent and if they vary by context.

Main Methods:

Analysis of over 30,000 national polls from 351 general elections across 45 countries (1942-2017).
Examination of polling errors' evolution over election timelines and in the final campaign week.
Pooled analysis controlling for institutional and party features to assess temporal trends in polling errors.

Main Results:

Contrary to popular belief, recent polling performance has not been outside historical norms.
Polling errors exhibit variations across different political contexts.
The performance of polls demonstrates understandable patterns related to political and institutional factors.

Conclusions:

The study challenges the notion that election polling is becoming less accurate.
Contextual factors significantly influence the accuracy of pre-election polls.
Further research into context-specific polling dynamics is warranted.