© 2026 WRVO Public Media
NPR News for Central New York
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Politics Podcast: Not All Polls Are Created Equal

An unscientific poll: Iowa's corn poll, where visitors casts their vote with a kernels of corn.
Paul Sancya
/
AP
An unscientific poll: Iowa's corn poll, where visitors casts their vote with a kernels of corn.

Ever scratch your head over political polls that seem to be looking at similar questions — say, how a candidate might do in Iowa — but predict wildly different outcomes?

Polls drive so much of the political news coverage you see and hear. Lots of politics and media reporters follow those polls and report on them — but they don't always explain where they came from, how they were conducted, or why exactly they're so important in the first place.

To Nate Cohn, reporter with The New York Times' The Upshot, not all polls are created equal. In fact, very few are worth your time. He joined NPR's Tamara Keith and Danielle Kurtzleben on the NPR Politics Podcast to talk about political polls, the methodology behind them, and which ones can actually tell us something about the race for the White House.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

This story was compiled from reports by NPR News staff.
Recent cuts to federal funding are challenging our mission to serve central and upstate New York with trusted journalism, vital local coverage, and the diverse programming that informs and connects our communities. This is the moment to join our community of supporters and help keep journalists on the ground, asking hard questions that matter to our region.

Stand with public media and make your gift today—not just for yourself, but for all who depend on WRVO as a trusted resource and civic cornerstone in central and upstate New York.