Is opinion polling broken?

US president Donald Trump has claimed in a speech to the UN that the US and Venezuela combined now have 60% of the world’s oil. 100% of the team on More or Less were confused.What measurement was the president using to get to this figure? Barrels of oil produced a day? Reserves o ...  Show more

Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:(00:42) Frustrated economists have been left rending their garments and howling in the streets after the UK’s ‘productivity puzzle’ - a decade-long head-scratching, soul-searching conundrum - disappeared with a c ...  Show more

Recently, we've seen opinion polls come under some skepticism.  But is that skepticism truly justified?  The recent Brexit referendum and US 2016 Presidential Election are examples where some claims the polls "got it wrong".  This episode explores this idea. 

Nate Cohn, an expert on polling for The New York Times, knows that the predictions for the 2016 presidential election were bad.

But this year, he says, they were even worse.

So, what happened?

Nate talks us through a few of his theories and considers whether, ...

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">As Election Day looms, we’re seeing more and more headlines based on poll results. Some declare Trump and Harris </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/19/polling-harris-trump-pennsylvan ...

Pollsters are starting to panic. There’s headline after headline after headline ahead of the midterms on whether this election cycle’s polling is accurate or not. How does polling actually work? Is it really representative of how voters are feeling and what the outcome will be on ...  Show more