Organizations are beginning to launch so-called entrance polls — last polls taken proper earlier than the caucuses. These polls, that are additionally generally generally known as exit polls in non-caucus states, have taken on outsize significance within the minds of politicos.
Right here’s what it is advisable to know.
There are two of those exit-type polls. The Nationwide Election Pool — made up of ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC — and Edison Analysis conduct one, generally generally known as the N.E.P. Exit Ballot. The A.P.-NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis conducts the opposite, referred to as VoteCast, for The Related Press and Fox Information.
The Nationwide Election Pool ballot is a extra conventional exit ballot that contacts voters outdoors polling locations — or within the case of caucuses, earlier than folks enter to caucus. After the 2016 cycle, the N.E.P. ballot added a cellphone element in some states, during which some persons are referred to as prematurely of Election Day with a view to attain those that vote early. (There can be no pre-election calling within the N.E.P.’s Iowa caucus entrance ballot, since there isn’t any early voting.)
VoteCast isn’t actually a standard exit ballot — it surveys voters over the cellphone and on-line within the days and hours earlier than the election and asks them how they intend to vote; in some methods it’s extra much like a standard pre-election ballot.
After 2016, the N.E.P. made some methodological modifications to its ballot to account for academic division within the voters. Meaning its polls this cycle could not at all times essentially be immediately corresponding to exit polls from 2016, the final yr there was a aggressive Republican major. VoteCast started in 2018, so it doesn’t have 2016 knowledge for comparability.
At The Instances, we’ll take into account the N.E.P. and VoteCast polls within the context of our personal Instances/Siena polls, different public polling and, after votes are reported, precinct-level returns offered by the Iowa Republican Social gathering.
