Campaign polling is very different

Posted on: October 7, 2024 at 15:14:30 CT

Campaign internal polling is based on very extensive (and I do mean very very extensive) voter research polling. The parties, DNC and RNC, are constantly polling voters, not just during election cycles. So they know what issue are driving voters to the polls and which issues people agree with and don't agree with. The campaigns then use this data on which to base their polling where voters are called.

The media polls just base their polling on where they think the population is as far as R vs D, and even Independents (which is the biggest weakness in their polling by a very large margin). It is not accurate because they don't have access to the advanced voter research data from the parties on which to base their poll, and they oversample Independents by 600% (which is misleading because no reputable pollster would even begin to buy a person is an Independent when they are masquerading from one of the parties, usually D).

Trying to compare these two polling methods is like trying to compare apples to a door knob. They are not remotely alike in any way. The polling that uses the voter research data is actually VERY good.

But, as you can imagine, even the internal polls can be off if the voter research data is bad. It does happen, but they are still better than the media polls.