What 2012 polling can tell us about 2013 and beyond

Slide from a presentation by Bill McInturff on what went wrong with their polling in 2012 Pollsters want to get it right. That's how they make a living. And when they get it wrong'especially when they get it very wrong'they like to figure out how to make it right.

Bill McInturff, who did polling for Mitt Romney, but whose firm also splits polling duties with Peter Hart for NBC/WSJ, did a deep dive to try and figure out what went wrong. A lot went wrong with the composition of the "likely voter" (aka LV).

Elizabeth Wilner, writing at the Cook Political Report, sums it up:

The upshot of McInturff's findings (you can read his study here): A likely voter model based solely on self-described interest in the election failed to capture the true interest level and the strength of Democratic turnout efforts among voters age 18-29 and non-whites, especially Latinos. These groups are core Democratic groups, heavily dependent on cellphones and thus tougher to poll.

The realization by McInturff that his model didn't accurately account for the actual electorate is not new (the flaws in the LV model were becoming apparent to Steve Singiser and others prior to the election, and after), but it's well done (as is Wilner's write-up) and well worth a read.

Wilner pairs it with a second piece in which she speaks to prominent public pollsters to get a sense of which directions polling is headed.

McInturff's .pdf presentation is here (and highlighted at the top).

We'll continue the discussion after the fold, particularly why defining the electorate properly is so important to the prediction business.